Firstoff, the Tri-City Americans eliminated the Vancouver Giants last night in six games, to win their first-ever WHL Western Conference title and earn their first-ever trip to the WHL Final. Well, first ever in the Tri-Cities anyway - the franchise previously played in the WHL Final in 1973-74 (as the Calgary Centennials) and 1977-78 (as the Billings Bighorns) and lost both those Finals. But that's another lifetime ago.
Funny though that this final features Calgary's current WHL team against one of its previous WHL teams, isn't it.....each team also has player that used to play for the other team. The Hitmen have ex-Am Joel Broda, while the Americans have ex-Hitmen Brett Plouffe.
Looking at the numbers, I see that the Americans are the smallest team in the league at an average of 5'11.4" and 184 lb, while the Hitmen are the 3rd-biggest at 6'1.2" and 190 lb. So the average Hitmen player is about two inches taller and 6 pounds heavier than the average American. And most of Tri-City's size is on the blueline, where they have a couple of 6'5" monsters - but up front, their six top-scoring forwards in the regular season average out at 5'9" - not one is over 6 feet. The Hitmen have only one defenceman under 6'1" so it's going to be size against speed.
In the regular season, Tri-City scored the 3rd-most goals in the WHL with 272 - although Calgary was only 3 goals back at 269, so that's very even. The Hitmen allowed the 2nd-fewest goals in the league at 177 - which is 27 fewer than the Americans gave up. The two teams met only once in the regular season - January 31 in Calgary, which the Hitmen won 3-0.
Overall....offensively the two teams match up pretty evenly. Defensively I think Calgary has an edge. In net the Hitmen have an edge too - I know Drew Owsley is playing incredibly right now but the Hitmen can counter with Martin Jones....I gotta go with Jones in that head-to-head.
Calgary also has home ice advantage, and 11 players on the Hitmen - their core group - have the experience of making it to the Final last year, where they lost to Kelowna in six games. So I think I have to give Calgary the edge in the intangibles too.
My pick: Hitmen in six.
To other stuff now....
In the OHL, the Windsor Spitfires pulled off one of those rare sports feats over the weekend - they came back from a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-seven series to win the series 4-3. The victim was the Kitchener Rangers, who suffer the tough loss of having the defending Memorial Cup champs in that 3-0 hole and not being able to finish them off in four tries. Windsor now moves on to the OHL Final against the Barrie Colts.
The QMJHL Final is not set yet - one of the teams will be the Moncton Wildcats but their opponent could be either the Victoriaville Tigres or the Saint John Sea Dogs. Saint John leads that semifinal 3 games to 2 right now.
And last but certainly not least, the Notre Dame Hounds are the Telus Cup national Canadian AAA midget champions for the 2nd year in a row. They are only the 2nd team in the 30 year history of the event to defend a title - the Prince Albert Mintos won it back-to-back in 2006 and 2007. The Hounds boast six WHL prospects, who we could see on WHL rosters next year perhaps:
Marcus Basara - Prince Albert (listed player)
Dan Dale - Prince Albert (listed player)
Shea Howorko - Swift Current (2009 2nd round)
Marcus Messier - Tri-City (2009 2nd round)
Morgan Rielly - Moose Jaw (2009 1st round)
Blaine Thomson - Prince George (listed player)
1 comment:
Regarding the upcoming Hitmen/Ams series, one thing you didnt mention is that Calgary took nearly 400 more PIM in the regular season. Special teams will need to continue to click for the Ams to be successful.
Ams in 7.
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