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+---- Thread: [2x Team Spotlight] Making Up The Numbers - Season 61's Expansion Squads (/showthread.php?tid=135330)
[2x Team Spotlight] Making Up The Numbers - Season 61's Expansion Squads - ec06aaj - 02-15-2024
Season 75 marks the 23rd year since we switched into the FHM Era and, in that time, 10 of the 14 squads in the SMJHL as it is today have lifted the Four Star Cup. Newfoundland have six in their cabinet to lead the pack but the majority of the teams in our august league have drank deep from the goblet of glorious success and wept salt tears as they looked upon the breadth of their domains, knowing that just as Alexander the Great knew nothing but victory they too had vanquished all foes before them. For that season, at least. But you're an astute person with a fine mathematical brain - you know perfectly well that 10 is less than 14, and you'd be right. 10 teams have etched their names on the Four Star Cup and that leaves 4 who are still bereft, including both of the season 61 expansion squads: the Great Falls Grizzlies and the Regina Elk. It's these two that I want to dig into a bit.
What you may not realise is that on top of joining the league at the same time, the Elk and the Grizzlies have fortunes that are surprisingly well-matched. Not only have both teams never hoisted the Cup but in the 14 full seasons since their ascension, the two have combined for a single #1 overall pick and one appearance in the Four Star Cup finals. There have been flashes of brilliance - head back to season 67, where Regina finished second in the regular season, picking up nominations across a number of awards and seeing superstar goaltender Alexis Texas take the Cedric Robinson award for the league's top netminder - but to be cruel about it, the two franchises are closing in on a combined 30 years without ever really looking like power players in the league.
When you look into the playoffs, it all gets worse. It'd be one thing to be Cupless while still making runs and looking dangerous - galling, yes, as the Colorado Raptors can absolutely attest after last season, but there's always a reason to hope. It's quite another to post the record that Great Falls and Regina have over their time in the league. Ready?
In a combined 28 opportunities, the Grizzlies / Elk combo have made it into the postseason 23 times - Regina have missed in two seasons, Great Falls in three, and interestingly there has yet to be a season where both have been absent. Season 66 saw them square off in the first round so, for reasons of fairness, I'm eliminating that from the sample as well, leaving a total of 21 playoff appearances to choose from. Over that time period, the two teams have lost in their first series 15 times: 15 out of 21 shots at the Cup have ended after a single series.
That's already a ugly stat but I'm going to add some further bitter-tasting sauce, because I'm apparently a sadist feeding off the misery of others: in the 6 occasions where one side won a playoff series, only one of them saw the winning team win another, and for that you have to go back all the way to season 63. Great Falls beat the Anaheim Outlaws in five games, took down Kelowna in six to make it to the finals, whereupon they got thoroughly battered by the Newfoundland Berzerkers - that's the only time Great Falls have got further than one playoff win and, sorry to rub it in Elk fans, Regina have never done it. The best the Elk managed, and I'm using "best" with some reservation, was that season 66 where they beat Great Falls in five games and took two wins from Quebec City before eventually falling in six. When that's the high point of your time in the league, you can't blame fans for feeling beleaguered.
So that's the past of the situation; what does the future look like? As I write this, the two teams are both above the line of delineation between this year's haves and have nots and in fact sit adjacent: Great Falls in 5th, Regina in 6th with close to identical records and both with 32 points under their collective belts. Both squads are looking remarkably good defensively, joint second in goals conceded and in the top handful of teams for SA / 60, even if neither is blowing the doors off offensively. Grizzly Gordon-William Gibbles leads with 19 goals and 35 points in 26 games, a little off the pace for the top 10, but Red Panda for the Elk is right behind him with 34 points to his name.
If I were looking to pick an MVP from the combined team, though, I'd be looking between the pipes - Regina's Henri Losanov is rocking a .912 save percentage, good for third in the league, while Great Falls' rookie netminder Lee Harrison is not just already looking like a quality starter but tops the league for shutouts, posting 3 in 18 games of play. It might be silly to suggest that this by itself making the future look bright, but if you buy that a championship team is built from the crease out both have a lot to be happy about.
I'm not going to end with something trite suggesting that an end to the Cup drought is just around the corner. Quebec City have clearly taken their back-to-back playoff losses to Detroit personally and are brutalising the league and Colorado - as mentioned, themselves still Cupless in the FHM era and rocking a much longer dry spell - are fighting them all the way in the knowledge that two of their best players are graduating at the end of this year. What I will say is that unlike past seasons, there are genuinely good signs that both teams might be able to break out. After all, we all enjoyed the Grizzlies pulling off the upset of the century against Anchorage. Except Anchorage, but somebody's gotta lose.
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