Posted by Les Lazaruk on Saturday, March 28, 2009 at 09:49:00 AM.
Things are going as I expected them to in this best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarter-final series between the Saskatoon Blades and Lethbridge Hurricanes…tied 2-2, heading to Game 5 tonight. If you think I’m blowing a lot of “hot air” about that, let me remind you of the post on this blog, two down, entitled, “Let the Playoffs Begin”, written on Friday, March 20…the day this series began…and this paragraph near the end of the post…
“I can see each team winning once in both buildings in the first four games...meaning it'll be all square at 2-2 going into Game 5 a week from tomorrow at Credit Union Centre. At that point, we'll see which team prevails...the depth and balance of the Blades or the star power of the Hurricanes. I'll stick my neck out and say Saskatoon wins Games 5 and 6 and the series...but it could just as easily go the other way!”
I'm not going to deviate from that, now!!
Here’s some quick facts on the series…
The Blades have out-scored Lethbridge 11-9.
Nine different Blades have scored a goal in the series…Walker Wintoneak and Milan Kytnar lead the way with 2 each. 15 players have at least one point with Derek Hulak leading the way with 4.
The Hurricanes have out-shot Saskatoon 98-91.
On the power play, each team has scored three times in the series…the Blades on 20 chances (a 15.0% proficiency), Lethbridge on 17 man-power advantages (a 17.6% rate).
The team that scores the game’s first goal, more often than not goes on to win in the regular season, has only won once in four games of this series…that being Lethbridge in Game 2!
The team that scores the game’s second goal has won all four times!
Zach Boychuk has scored five of the nine Lethbridge goals in the series…four other players have one goal each so far. All of Boychuk’s goals have come in the two Canes’ victories. Just 10 Hurricanes have hit the scoresheet in the series, Boychuk with 6 points and Dwight King with 5, 4 of them assists.
The most penalized player in the series so far is, big surprise here, Zach Boychuk with 10 minutes!
It would be easy to say that Saskatoon needs to shut down Boychuk and the series is theirs, as evidenced by the Carolina first round draft pick having scored five of the nine Lethbridge goals...all in their two wins. But, Carter Ashton, Kyle Beach and/or Colton Sceviour are capable of busting out...so the Blades have to be wary of that!
The Blades need to get more shots on Juha Metsola…especially on the power play. They have just 22 shots on goal in their 20 man-power advantages. That compares to 24 shots by Lethbridge on their 17 chances to date.
Both goaltenders have taken turns being sensational in this series. I can’t see Braden Holtby or Metsola being faulted if their team isn’t able to pull through and move on to Round 2!
In the end, the determining factor in this series is going to be 1-on-1 battles…be they along the boards, in the corners, in front of the nets, on the rush…the team that loses fewer of these sort of confrontations will be the one to advance.
By the way, if the Blades win this series, they’ll move on to play Brandon in the Eastern Conference semi-final round. Lethbridge, meanwhile, will get Calgary if they advance!
At
