Two games in

One-third of the way through the Memorial Cup round-robin now, and what a couple great games we've been treated to already. Both games have gone to overtime and curiously, both also followed a roughly similar script which saw one team (Kitchener & Spokane) significantly outplay their opponent, jump out to 3-0 first period leads, blow the leads to the weaker team, but still win the game in overtime.

In both games, I'd say that without the goaltending of Ryan Mior for Gatineau and Mike Murphy for Belleville, that the games would have been shellings. Kitchener and Spokane were clearly the better teams. Which means the winner of tomorrow's matchup between the two could very well determine first place in the round-robin and who gets the bye into the final. In fact, there's only a couple of possible scenarios where the winner of tomorrow's game does not finish first and get the bye.

For example, if Spokane wins tomorrow, they will finish #1 unless:

1. Gatineau beats Belleville on Monday and Spokane on Tuesday, and Belleville beats Kitchener on Wednesday. That would given Gatineau first place and Spokane 2nd. This is the only scenario in which Spokane would definitely not finish first.
2. Gatineau beats Belleville on Monday and Spokane on Tuesday, and Kitchener beats Belleville on Wednesday. This would create a three-way tie for first place between Spokane, Kitchener, and Gatineau which cannot be broken by round-robin result. So, it would go to goal differential which Spokane might still win.

Two similar scenarios exist for ways in which Kitchener can beat Spokane and still not finish #1. Needless to say, tomorrow's game is HUGE.