□ Home □ Hockey □ Wolf*Pack □ Link to Story □ Back		Houston Ends LaBarbera's Run March 5, 2005 By ANDREW J. FERRARO, Special To The Courant HOUSTON -- It's an understatement to say Jason LaBarbera has had a successful run against the Houston Aeros. With three straight shutouts against the Aeros, there was no question LaBarbera would be in goal when the puck was dropped Friday night at the Toyota Center. LaBarbera was 5-1 with a 1.77 goals against average against the Aeros going into Friday night's game. But LaBarbera needed to be perfect and could not do it all as the Wolf Pack lost 3-1 to the Aeros in front of an announced crowd of 5,534. "It was a close game, a tight-checking game and it's really been like that in our last few games against them," LaBarbera said. "At first we just couldn't get a bounce and then at the end, with the extra attacker, we just couldn't get the puck toward the net." The loss kept the Wolf Pack (37-19-2-2) two points behind the idle Manchester Monarchs, who lead the Atlantic Division with 80 points. The Wolf Pack outshot the Aeros 15-6 in the third period, but could not get the tying goal past Aeros rookie Josh Harding who finished with 30 saves. Kirby Law scored into an empty net with 1 second left to finish the game for the Aeros, who improved to 28-21-6-3. "We played good here tonight, but it wasn't meant to be," LaBarbera said. "It would have been nice to come out of here with at least a point." Defenseman Ray Giroux, who played at Yale, made it 1-0 with 5:50 left in the first period, scoring 3 seconds after the Aeros' first power play expired. After LaBarbera made the initial save on Zbynek Michalek, Giroux poked in the rebound. The Pack had several chances early, but Harding kept the game scoreless, giving Giroux a chance to become the first Aero to beat LaBarbera in 226 minutes, 5 seconds. Hnat Domenichelli was the last Aero to score on LaBarbera, Jan. 22, 2003 in a 6-0 victory at the Civic Center. The Wolf Pack tied the score with a power-play goal 2:16 into the second period when Jozef Balej collected a rebound on a shot by Lawrence Nycholat and beat Harding high into the net. Balej had a chance to give the Wolf Pack the lead when he broke in 2-on-1 with Dominic Moore, but Harding got his pads on the ice and stopped Balej, who tried to stuff the puck under the goalie. The Aeros took the lead late in the second when Pierre-Marc Bouchard forced a turnover in the corner. Mikko Koivu grabbed the puck and fed Law in front.