As per Gregg Drinnan, the Blazers also released import defenceman Michal Siska yesterday, so he will not be back with the team for a second season next year.
WHL final starts tonight in Calgary, 7:30pm at the Saddledome and on Shaw TV.
Time for my prediction....I was 1-1 in the last round, picking Calgary in five and Vancouver in seven. This time, I'm picking the Hitmen in six.
This might be the best series we've seen all playoffs, because of how evenly these two teams match up. They both have three-plus strong forward lines and two-plus excellent blueline pairings. For me, the areas which give Calgary the edge are goaltending, special teams, and having home ice advantage. I know some people are high on Mark Guggenberger in the Rockets net, but I just don't see how he is better than the Hitmen's Martin Jones. And that home ice advantage is a big one - the Hitmen are 38-3-1 (.917) at home this season, and the Rockets need to win a game in Calgary to take the series - and they have not been one of the best road teams this year (.569 in the regular season and .625 in the playoffs). Calgary is also 33-6-2-1 (.821) on the road, so I'm going with the Hitmen to take it in six.
Looking at the depth these teams have, it's no surprise they have both gone as deep as they have....lots of teams in the league have some good top-end talent but usually it's depth that makes the difference in the playoffs, and Calgary & Kelowna both have that depth.
2 comments:
Do you have any thoughts as to how individual teams did in the draft?
Real winners, value picks etc..
I think it's awfully hard to grade drafts this early when nobody has any idea which, if any, of these kids will ever play in the WHL or how good they'll be if they do.
I would say any team that had more than four picks in the top 60 or so probably did well and can be reasonably assured of landing a couple impact WHLers from their picks. Teams who had fewer high picks, they are reduced to waiting a year and hoping they caught some sleepers.
IMO you can't really analyze and grade a draft until three years later, when the kids from that draft are completing their 17 year old seasons. By that point, they'll either be in the WHL or they're probably not going to make it, in most cases.
But that's a good idea for a future post for me - take a look at past drafts and see which teams did well more consistently.
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