02.18.03 - Looking to take the next step a year after their trip to the conference finals, the Houston Aeros are establishing themselves as one of the league's top contenders for the Calder Cup 2003 championship.

Under head coach Todd McLellan, Houston is 37-13-6-1 (.711) on the season, with a mark of 21-3-4-1 since Dec. 21, and 18 points clear of the rest of the West Division entering the final seven weeks of the 2002-03 regular season.

The Aeros lead the 14-team Western Conference with 188 goals scored and control their own destiny in their pursuit of a top seed in the Calder Cup 2003 Playoffs; beginning Feb. 22, Houston plays all of its final 21 games against conference foes.

The Aeros have been led on the ice by perennial AHL All-Star Jean-Guy Trudel (24+42=66 pts.), a First Team selection in 2001 and a Second Team pick in 2000 and 2002 who trails the league's scoring race by one point.

Cory Larose, a member of the 2002 AHL All-Rookie Team, is second in team scoring with 56 points this season, while Hnat Domenichelli, a veteran of 267 NHL games, is tied for the Aeros' goal-scoring lead with 24 tallies.

Forwards Kyle Wanvig and Rickard Wallin, who both made their NHL debuts this season, are among the nine Aeros to be recalled by the Minnesota Wild in 2002-03.

Curtis Murphy and Travis Roche, two of the top-scoring defensemen in the entire AHL, lead the Aeros' unit of blueliners, along with Lawrence Nycholat, whose plus-23 rating is tops on the team.

Houston's last line of defense is solid as well, with the twosome of All-Star Derek Gustafson (18-7-2) and Dieter Kochan (15-6-3) recently joined by 21-year-old rookie Frederic Cloutier, who is 4-1-1 with a 1.91 goals against average in his first seven AHL appearances.

The Aeros organization is also an important part of the Houston community, as evidenced by the successful efforts of the Houston Aeros Charities program.

Last week, the Aeros announced they will be making a donation to the Columbia Scholarship Fund, and for the remainder of the season, the team's jerseys will include the official flight patch from the space shuttle Columbia, honoring the seven astronauts who were lost on Feb. 1. Houston is home to the Johnson Space Center and NASA's Mission Control.

As a new downtown arena is set to open in 2003-04, the Aeros are hoping to close down the Compaq Center with the franchise's first AHL championship.