After Beaverlodge continued their never-give-up attitude last night against the Jr. Canucks, who at one point held a 4-1 lead, forcing OT and Riley Muise's OT heroics to secure a three point advantage against the FSJ Huskies, who have a three point lead... nothing is safe yet for Dawson Creek.
Enough commas?
Thanks to Evan Weaver's pair of goals, Colter MacLean's three assists, the Canucks were able to come out with a huge victory to try and secure the home-ice playoff advantage for the Jrs.
Here's the thing about the Huskies, though, with their three games in hand. Two of those are almost guaranteed losses against the Peace River Navigators and the Whitecourt Wolverines. They have two games against the GP Wheelers who've shown offensive flair in the latter stages of this year (and who have locked up third place), and one against the aforementioned Beaverlodge Blades.
That said, the worst the Canucks can finish is fourth, guaranteeing a first round home-ice advantage in the playoffs. Thing is, if they fall to fourth and advance past the first round, they're lining up against the Whitecourt Wolverines who will almost assuredly take care of them in the second round, barring a massive collapse.
This season, that doesn't make a difference.
Next season, however....
There's rumour that the Lloydminster Bobcats of the AJHL will be bought and relocated to Whitecourt. The Wolverines, sadly, do not have a lot of regular season fan-base due to their recent dominance in the NWJHL. But with an AJHL team, a lot of their talent stands to migrate upwards to Jr. A hockey, meaning that all of a sudden Whitecourt becomes a team you can beat in Jr. B.
This is FANTASTIC for the NWJHL. All of a sudden it starts to build a bit more of competitiveness (presuming future players for Peace River decide to have higher aspirations and move up to Jr. A hockey), and all of a sudden Whitecourt has two teams competing for a fan-base.
With the Jr. B team presumably all of a sudden a bit more in-tough for high-calibre players, the Jr. B team serving as a feeder club to Jr. A, and the fact Whitecourt has a large enough population base to possibly support two junior hockey clubs, nothing but good could come of this move if it goes through.
In the meantime, the Canucks are out in Whitecourt on Saturday (Sunday in Slave Lake), so in all likelihood the Canucks are going to come out 1-1 on the weekend, and the Huskies are liable to lose their Saturday tilt against Peace River.
If they go 1-1 as well, we're in the same boat heading into the final two games for the Canucks.
Should be a good finish to the NWJHL.
Tune in on Peacefm.ca Friday and Saturday as the DC Rage, meanwhile, have won five in a row and are making a press on the Kenai River Brown Bears to try make the NAHL playoffs in their first year.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Long Awaited Update
Back at the hockey blogging train. Let's catch up, shall we?
So in the NAHL, the DC Rage went 1-2 against the Wenatchee Wild last week. They're on the road in Chicago this weekend starting with what is now tonight's game as this post is coming after midnight. It was a huge, gutsy win over Wenatchee, similar to that of their 2-1 friendly over the Malmo Redhawks, Magnus Paajarvi's old team. They banged, they crashed, they played a hard physical game. That was the middle session of their three-game set. Then they proceeded to get trounced in game three. Hopefully tonight's game against Chicago goes back to the physical style that typically seems them have success. As the only Canadian team in an American-dominated league, I think that's the style they have to play in order to get wins consistently in the NAHL.
As far as the Jr. Canucks go, dropping just below .500 with a 9-1 drubbing at the hands of the Grande Prairie Wheelers, I'm not sure what came unraveled. They entered the contest not terribly far behind GP, but with Fort St. John holding two games in hand and only 3 points behind the Canucks for fourth place in the NWJHL, it was basically a must-win. GP was missing numerous players from their lineup, including Cory Littman, their captain and leading scorer (4th in the league), Riley Halwa and a couple other key players. Sure, Dawson Creek was without Colter Maclean and Jason Higson, their big two up front, but Dawson has shown depth scoring when it matters.
It didn't make a difference.
Lewis Lindon put together a hat-trick performance to get 10 goals on the year, Cody Atkinson was a crossbar away from matching Lindon's feat, Jack Surgenor let in a couple easy ones that he'd want to have back, and rookie AP netminder Zach Leslie coming in relief, his first goal against was as stinky as they come to Atkinson, a shot relatively unscreened that he just outright didn't catch in his glove.
This is a team that is on the verge of pushing up the NWJHL. But they seem to lose one, win one, lose one, win one. They remind me a lot of the Oilers in the sense that you can sense they're not far away from pushing up to third in the league. Whitecourt and Peace River almost deserve to be Junior A, they're that far ahead of the rest of the pack, but after that it can be anyone's league on any given night.
Tonight they host Beaverlodge, who history has shown will rarely ice a full line-up on the road. This is a huge opportunity to regain that separation on FSJ and secure home ice advantage for at least the first round of the playoffs. Must-win? No. Close to it? Yes. The NWJHL schedule isn't that demanding compared to Jr. A hockey or other leagues (roughly 20 games less than most), and every win counts in a league where playoffs are mandatory for all teams.
So in the NAHL, the DC Rage went 1-2 against the Wenatchee Wild last week. They're on the road in Chicago this weekend starting with what is now tonight's game as this post is coming after midnight. It was a huge, gutsy win over Wenatchee, similar to that of their 2-1 friendly over the Malmo Redhawks, Magnus Paajarvi's old team. They banged, they crashed, they played a hard physical game. That was the middle session of their three-game set. Then they proceeded to get trounced in game three. Hopefully tonight's game against Chicago goes back to the physical style that typically seems them have success. As the only Canadian team in an American-dominated league, I think that's the style they have to play in order to get wins consistently in the NAHL.
As far as the Jr. Canucks go, dropping just below .500 with a 9-1 drubbing at the hands of the Grande Prairie Wheelers, I'm not sure what came unraveled. They entered the contest not terribly far behind GP, but with Fort St. John holding two games in hand and only 3 points behind the Canucks for fourth place in the NWJHL, it was basically a must-win. GP was missing numerous players from their lineup, including Cory Littman, their captain and leading scorer (4th in the league), Riley Halwa and a couple other key players. Sure, Dawson Creek was without Colter Maclean and Jason Higson, their big two up front, but Dawson has shown depth scoring when it matters.
It didn't make a difference.
Lewis Lindon put together a hat-trick performance to get 10 goals on the year, Cody Atkinson was a crossbar away from matching Lindon's feat, Jack Surgenor let in a couple easy ones that he'd want to have back, and rookie AP netminder Zach Leslie coming in relief, his first goal against was as stinky as they come to Atkinson, a shot relatively unscreened that he just outright didn't catch in his glove.
This is a team that is on the verge of pushing up the NWJHL. But they seem to lose one, win one, lose one, win one. They remind me a lot of the Oilers in the sense that you can sense they're not far away from pushing up to third in the league. Whitecourt and Peace River almost deserve to be Junior A, they're that far ahead of the rest of the pack, but after that it can be anyone's league on any given night.
Tonight they host Beaverlodge, who history has shown will rarely ice a full line-up on the road. This is a huge opportunity to regain that separation on FSJ and secure home ice advantage for at least the first round of the playoffs. Must-win? No. Close to it? Yes. The NWJHL schedule isn't that demanding compared to Jr. A hockey or other leagues (roughly 20 games less than most), and every win counts in a league where playoffs are mandatory for all teams.
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