Login

***Jexter*** · 07-08-2024, 01:44 PM

The Philadelphia Forge have been the team to beat in the East this whole season after coming out extremely hot. They averaged 5.39 goals for a game with 3.12 against, allowing some of their players to top the leaderboards in points and plus minus in the league. Five Forgers were in the top ten in the league for plus minus this season (San-Sam Emerson, Johnny Shuffleboard, Gnabe Dobson, Marek Carda (Lobster), and Red Kirkby). With three of those names being defenders from three different pairings and two forwards for two different lines, this shows off how much the Forge are cooking along in their steady play, particularly 5 on 5. When it comes to the power play, the Forge managed to make the other team pay for it 26.8% of the time and were able to kill off 85% of their own penalties. Cale Salad had an astonishing year with 124 points, leading the league in that aspect and making those who did not take him in fantasy (aka me) look very foolish. But it was not just the first line that was rolling for the Forge as Tony Soprano led his unit for a big season and he too ended up on the leaderboard as well. Their third line of the young guns were able to hold down the fort and then some as they were backed by a great defense. BASE PACK was in exceptional form this season and Red Kirkby was laying out their body for their team with team leading 244 shots blocked. While Kirkby only barely made the top ten league wide for their shot blocks, it should be noted that the Forge dominate the shots for and against ratio this season with only 30.42 shots against on average.

So how can you try and beat the Forge? Short answer is, you need to find a way to shut down their offense. It will not be easy, but it will be very hard to beat a team that can score more than 6 goals. Ask the Winnipeg Jets in the NHL. Additionally, their record in shootouts was very bad this season, but how can you take advantage of that when there are no shootouts in the playoffs? My answer, and stay with me, commit a penalty if someone is on a breakaway. Trip them, hook them, slash them, punch them, cross check them, just make it so they have to have a pressure shot from the center dot. Odds are things are going to be alright. Now for real, the best advice I can give is for whoever is playing them (Hamilton in the first round, who by the way have beaten the forge once this season already) is to play to your own strengths, as trying to out Forge the Forge would really only end in you getting burnt. The other big advice I have is to try to avoid the Forge’s depth. The Depth of this team and how they are playing right now is a big problem for the lower seeded teams to deal with.

Now if you want to try and guarantee a win, you might want to resort to underhanded tactics of questionable legality. All is fair in love and hockey. For the record, I am not saying do this, just that you could try this to win. But here are a few more (sillier) ideas that I have for taking down the Forge.
1. Put sleepy time NyQuil in the Forge’s sports drinks. After that, put on a few lullabies on the arena speakers in between the periods and while play is stopped.
2. When it comes to Cale Salad: fork them with your stick. Give them the good old spear to the gut. Salads are notoriously weak to forks.
3. For dealing with Tony Soprano, just cut to black mid-sent-.
4. For BASE PACK, try to use expansion decks. They seem very adverse to extra content and it might be too much for their brain to handle.
5. For Nathanial Barca, get someone named Scipio or Africanus on your team to try and counter the brilliant strategic mind of Nathaniel.
6. Back to trying to mess with the whole team: try to show them an extremely sad movie by breaking into their hotel before the game. Try movies like Dead Poets Society, The Notebook, Your Name, La La Land, Violet Evergarden, A Walk to Remember, Marley & Me and Life is Beautiful.
7. Try to force a forfeit by changing the clocks on the Forge.
8. Do a Rocky training montage while in town in Philadelphia, ending at the iconic stairs. If there is one thing the Rocky movies have taught me it is that there is no obstacle, sports or otherwise that can’t be solved by a montage.
9. Fight someone. The Forge have had three fights all season and only Tony Soprano (fittingly) has won a fight. The other two involving Ricky Koivu and Red Kirkby have been losses for the Philadelphia Forge. Apparently, this could be an effective way to limit the playing time of some of their star players as their stars are not afraid to drop the gloves. Does this run counteractive to my previous Rocky analogy? A little bit I guess, but you need to think out of the box to try and upset a one seed.
10. Use the power of friendship. To be honest, this one is a long shot as I am pretty sure the power of friendship will not work and even if it could, the Forge are friends with each other too. I know I said guarantees to try to beat the Forge before this little segment, but it is pretty tough to try and do that.

And that does it for my quick review of the Philadelphia Forge and how to try to beat them in the playoffs. Keep an eye out because I might also throw one out there for the Los Angeles Panthers. I am quite thankful that the Forge are on the other side of the bracket and the Aurora do not have to face a team that had at least a 100 points, a goal differential over +100, and 50 wins in the season. *Checks schedule* Uh oh. So how would you try and beat a team like this? I am gonna need all the help I can feed over to Langston apparently.

Until next time, dear readers!

WC: 1079

ibuprofenaddict · 07-09-2024, 09:48 AM

Lobster power!

Navigation

Extra Menu

About us