Who will the Ghostrider’s play in the 1st P/O round
The Riders only play one game this week and it’s at home against the Rockies who with a 3 point lead missed out on a chance to distance themselves from Golden in the standings when they lost 3-1 to Kimberley and 6-1 to Nelson last week. Golden kept pace with the Rockies by losing 4-3 to Nelson and 6-3 to Fernie.
Golden has 4 games left, they host a motivated Grand Forks who are in a fight with Spokane for third place then play Creston this weekend before ending the season with two in Kimberley. Probably better get the wins this weekend Rockets.
Meanwhile the Rockies have fallen mightily in the last few weeks, they had what looked to be an insurmountable 10 point lead on the Riders before Christmas... now Fernie leads by 8.
The Rockies have 6 games left, 2 at home vs Kimberley and Fernie and 4 on the road in Fernie (2) Castlegar and Beaver Valley... with 2 extra games and 3 points in the standings the odds are the Rockies will be here in Fernie Tuesday February 26-27 for the first round of the P/O's...
All the local math grads tell me that with 6 games left the Rockies could still actually pass the Riders and get second place...but I didn’t go to skool... obviously
________________________________________________
Ghostrider Notes
The Coaches picked Dylan Defosse as January’s Boston Pizza Player of the Month.The other POM’s were, starting in September Kyle Ford, Keelan Saworski, Brendan Nemes and Riley Fonger
With his goal last weekend Brendan Nemes has caught Tyler Witzke in the goal scoring department with 21goals and with 41 points is just 5 behind Jordan Kromm who has now doubled his point totals from last year with 46.
Team Captain Keelan Saworski scored both Rider goals against Beaver Valley and was named as the Tim Horton’s Player of the Week and
In the second period of the Beaver Valley game one of the Hawk forwards had a breakaway but the smooth skating Tristan Downe made a great diving play from behind and knocked the puck off the player’s stick. It was a classic hit the puck first diving takeaway by Downe... so they call a penalty shot ? Come on you guys the fans come to see goals saves passes and great defensive plays like that, you’ve taken all the mayhem away and put cages on everyone at least let the D make nice plays.
Niki Sombrowski and Kyle Ford have been line-mates all season and have had assists on almost all of each others goals. So it was a somewhat leap of faith that the coaches split them up... but it seems to have worked, Sombrowski scored the game winner in Golden and Ford had two goals. Maybe them coaches know what they’re doing after all.
Injuries
After missing a month David Lenzin fit seamlessly back in the lineup last weekend and didn’t seemed slowed at all. Lenzin was the McDonald’s Practice Player of the Week. Coach Wagner says Greg Susinski and Josh Dalquist have been skating as well and could play this weekend.
Round the League
Ok fans It’s time for the annual Coach of the Year Popularity contest. Every season the coaches from their respective divisions vote on each other for the Coach of the Year award.
Like em or not KD’s Derek Stuart has always had the best team but has never won it, I wonder why... I'm good with it though, but will call a spade a spade if I see fit. It’s what we do here.
This season we have a couple of guys who have made giant turnarounds with their respective teams. Golden’s Jeremy Blumes got the Rockets from 3 wins to a playoff spot and Fernie’s -Jeff Wagner’s Riders went from 34 points to 55 with 5 games left... meanwhile Stuart has a 21 point lead on everyone.
I don’t have a vote and don’t want one, the coaches who coach against each other know better than anyone else in and around the league who the best coach is. I just wonder who's the most popular... and maybe this will piss some people off as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment