The WHL final resumes tonight in Kennewick with game three between the Hitmen and Americans.
I don't think it's a stretch to say that tonight is the most important game of the series....a Hitmen win will put the Americans down 3-0 and we know that almost nobody ever digs out of that hole - combined in the histories of the NHL, NBA, and MLB, teams leading a series 3-0 are 275-3 in the series, so they win the series 98.9% of the time. So realistically, if the Ams want to have any chance of winning the series, they NEED to win tonight. And if they do win, now it's a 2-1 series, they have a little momentum and they have game four in their rink tomorrow night. Calgary probably really wants to avoid that scenario. So yeah, tonight is critically important to both teams, I would think.
One thing we haven't seen much of in this series is anything that resembles the emotion of a rivalry. It hasn't been a nasty series at all....no big hits on star players (Shinnimin on Kozun excepted), no goalies being run, and only two fights - and both fights were in the last few minutes of decided games. That may change as things go along, but I think we're unlikely to see anything approaching the animosity of the current OHL final.
You may have already seen this video of Barrie forward Darren Archibald running Windsor's goaltender in the last minute of the game three loss that put Barrie down 3-0 in the series. Archibald has been suspended indefinitely by the OHL for that. But there's some off-ice stuff going on too between the two teams that may be sparking even deeper emotional reactions.
Seems Barrie used their first round pick in the OHL draft on the weekend to take Windsor G.M. Warren Rychel's son Kerby. Windsor had been hoping to draft Kerby in the 2nd round; apparently most other OHL teams were fine with that since most of them projected Kerby as a 2nd round talent. But not Barrie.....they took him late in the first round and now they own the rights to the son of the G.M. of the team they are playing for the OHL title. It's probably safe to say that there's not a lot of love for the Barrie Colts in the Rychel house right now.....
3 comments:
It would be extremely short sighted and career suicide to take a player who is not a legitimate first rounder just to piss off a team you happen to be playing in a playoff round. I hope Barrie management would not be that dumb.
Also, Rychel traded down in the 2nd round, which is pretty bush if he ran around getting a bunch of GMs to back off his kid and then abused that trust by moving down within the round to gain a benefit elsewhere. Finally, why would you want your kid to play for you? This causes nothing but problems (see Keegan Lowe, Zach Habscheid, Dylan Hunter, numerous Sutters in Red Deer, etc.) for the kid and coach / GM alike. Even if the kid is an excellent player and the parent does everything with the best of intentions, the coach / GM is either a) PERCEIVED as giving special treatment to his kid b) actually giving special treatment to his kid; or c) too hard on the kid. Let him make his own way. And if Barrie management actually made this move in spite, they deserve a special place in Hockey H-E-Double Hockey Sticks. Enjoy the unemployment line, because it is not far off.
There seems to be an actual strategy to drafting Rychel. If he does not report to Barrie next fall, then the Colts get an compensatory pick (which i believe is in the same round as the player who did not report, in this case a first). And since you cannot trade first round picks in the OHL, this is the best way to get an extra. The player Barrie wanted was probably long gone, and saw this as an opportunity to both stir things up more for the finals and get help for 12 months from now.
Nick
who cares
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