Comment 1: Special Teams Difference
Game 24 between the Lethbridge Lions and the St.Louis Scarecrows was largely a tale of special teams. The Lions were just unable to stay disciplined this game and that ultimately led to a rather one-sided victory for the Scarecrows. While St. Louis had eight powerplays and capitalized on two of them, Lethbridge went zero for two in their attempts. A decent amount of blame has to fall on to Akira Ren and Cal Clucker who took back to back penalties in the first period putting the Lions down two defensemen and allowing St. Louis to easily extend their goal lead. Lethbridge will have to learn to play a more disciplined brand of hockey going forward.

Comment 2: Unsung Heroes
Despite the one sided game, there were a few players who quietly had strong performances and ended up being unsung heroes. For the Lethbridge Lions, look no further than Hugh Jazz and Cant Eykhil. The duo combined for the lone goal by Lethbridge and were also huge parts of the team’s penalty kill playing 4:39 and 6:20 on it respectively. That is an insane number of minutes! For the St. Louis Scarecrows, Marques Brownlee made his season debut and looked very solid in it. While he wasn’t the busiest, he stopped 22 out of 23 shots and made some key saves to ensue that his team always carried the momentum. St. Louis will be deadly if he can keep up these performances.

Comment 3: A Surprising Japanese Star
The season 50 draft is a big one for Japanese players and this game featured quite a few, one who happened to be the MVP of the game! The SMJHL draft saw Akira Ren and Disisde Dayudie be the first two Japanese players selected however it was the second round pick Yamamoto Mitsuharu who shined tonight. Mitsuharu opened the scoring with his second goal of the season and also drew the primary assist on the last goal of the game. He essentially got the ball rolling and shut the door on any potential Lions comeback. Before the next time these teams faceoff, Ren and Dayidie will need to better study how to defend their Japanese brethren.