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Playoff Preview |
Posted By: admin |
Sunday, March 2, 2014 |
 The best-of-five IJHL Quarter-final series gets underway on Tuesday night in Evangeline when the Arsenault's Fish Mart Red Wings host the Holland College Hurricanes at 7:30 to kick off the post-season. Quarter-Finals: The Red Wings won the season series 5-3 and are the higher seeded team in this series, but it's expected to be a very close one. The Hurricanes had a strong start and finish to the regular season but struggled in between. In the months of October and February the Hurricanes held a record of 8-5-2 but in November, December and January they struggled to a 1-15-1 record. They've played well as of late thanks to solid goaltending by rookie keeper Matt Derry and solid defensive play from second year defencemen Eric Locke, Will Connolly and Curtis Hall. Offensively, Patrick Cummiskey has led the way, finishing seventh in league scoring and second among rookies. Nick MacDonald and captain Jonny Richards have also played important roles.
Last year's scoring champion may not have repeated this year, but he still scored 14 more points and led the Red Wings offensively. Also Brandon Carter has returned and will bring physical play and some secondary scoring as well as hard-working forward, Brett Adams, Blake Ozon and gritty forward Fidan Feta. Also, defenceman Tayler Smith and Matt Kelly will be expected to play big minutes. Semi-Finals: The winner of that series will face the Kensington Moase Plumbing & Heating Vipers, who are four-time defending league champions and the winner's of last year’s Don Johnson Memorial Cup. The Vipers goaltending duo of Grant Grady and Dylan McQuaid were tops in the league this season in a year in which offence dominated. League-wide goals per game this season was the highest ever (although league records for this stat are not available previous to 2001-02). The Vipers have no shortage of offensive fire power, with Jordan Mayhew (66), Jeremy Jollimore (56), and Kyle Doucette (53) all scoring more than 50 points. In the other semi-final, the third-seeded Sherwood A&S Scrap Metal Falcons will meet the second-seeded Montague Total Assets Fitness Maniacs. The Maniacs threatened to challenge the Vipers for top spot all season, but ran out of runway at the end. They finished 20 points ahead of their semi-final opponents, and were 7-1 against the Falcons this season, but all of that history will be erased when they meet them in the best-of-seven.
Sherwood started the season off strong with a good October, but closed out the season with just one win in their last seven games. Craig Dougan will lead the Falcons into the post-season offensively. He was fifth in the league in scoring with 56 points. In goal, the Falcons have given the majority of the minutes recently to Daniel Nicholson, who was acquired from Montague in December.
The schedule for the best-of-seven semi-finals will come available as the first round progresses. Stay tuned to IslandJuniorHockey.com for schedule/results during the playoffs.
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