We've seen this before but we have not seen it like this, the edmonton Blizzard and the New England Wolfpack facing off for the first time sinc ethe Challenge Cup playoffs, one team is drastically different with numerous retiring players and a few more that moved on to more competitive teams.

Last time, it was a seven game series where the Blizzard took the early series lead winning the first two games but the Wolfpack came back howling winning four straight and their first challenge cup.

This time, the Season 23 Western Conference and the Season 23 Eastern Conference Champions meet at the halfway point of the Season, with much different records and much different lineups. The Blizzard got aging but still potent scoring theat Armin Brovalchuk in free agency whereas the Pack lost a lot of their stars to trades and to retirement, these are not the same teams that we saw fighting for supremacy. At least not the Wolfpack, the Blizzard could be and seem to be having a rougher start then you'd expect, then again, the Wolfpack would know about rough starts.
Let's see if we can come up with some sort of prediction for tonight's game.






EDMONTON BLIZZARD


Sitting in the playoffs with the Dragons nipping at their heels, they need this win to cement that spot in the standings because should they not and both Calgary and Seattle win as well they went from fourth to last place in the West, only by a point but at the halfway point it looks like the playoff crunch will be an exciting nailbiter yet again.

With a twelve eleven and one record, they are barely above 500, and only one win ahead of the Dragons who sit 5th with 11-11-2 and the Riot who have an 11-13-2 record having played two more games then the Blizzard.

They are not having an overly good year, scoring seventy two goals but also allowing seventy one, not what you'd expect from a world class goalie like Aittokallio, but then again most of the established goalies are having down years this year.

In the last ten they have not had a good run, splitting the games evenly at five, their home record a terrible 4-8-1, they look to change that tonight against the leagues worst traveling team...

vs



NEW ENGLAND WOLFPACK


Yes, that would be the Wolfpack, who hold the record this year for worst traveling team at 1-7-5, only winning that single game over the playoff days ago. With only fifty five goals scored and eighty five allowed, we have a horrid minus thirty goal differential and with the record heading into someone elses barn that the Pack has, that will very likely increase, however with a 3-4-3 record in the last ten games, the Pack has shown resilency and fight taking eight games to overtime and losing all but one in the shootout, that being in overtime itself.

How do the teams compare?

Goals
On the Blizzard, we have Theo Kane leading the way with thirteen goals while the Wolfpack have a pair of leading goal scorers with Blake Sherrill and Niklas Wikstrom both having tickled the twine nine times.

Assists
Benjamin Reid on the Wolfpack is a bit short of the lead between the teams at fifteen assists compared to Keenan and Vikstrand who have seventeen a piece.

Points
the Blizzard again lead the way here with Ratzon, Longford and Keenan all placing with twenty one. On the Pack, Reid and Colt are tied for the lead at twenty a a piece.

Plus minus, neither team has been particularly good defensively with Theo Kane being one of only a handful above even at +3 and the same is true for Colt, with a +1 over 26 games.


Finally the Pack lead something, with Tsizling totalling a hundred and five hits so far this season compared to the Blizzards leader Buchesner at eighty five. On the forward line, Ratzon was way behind at 56, while Nathan Russell again puts up a strong aggressive season with seventy two hits.

Noiw who causes the goalies misery? That'd be Berger with 82, followed by Ratzon and Keenen with 77 shots a piece. Over in New England, Sherrill abnd Wikstrom have each flung 92 shots at the opposing net and scored nine times for a shade under a 10% shooting percentage.

On the defensive side of things, we have Buchesner, the leader in hits, also be the leader in blocked shots, showing a strong two way game having tossed himself willingly in front of thirty three shots where on the New England side snipers were saying "I can't believe it did't go in" well that's because Cant was there blocking forty two shots from going in.

Faceoff percentage is up next, with Berger leading the way with 53.53%, followed by Wikstrom at 53.09 and on his heels Colt with 53.05%, lastly Brovalchuk with 51.44% as well.

There you have it, it seems the Blizzard are dominating the finesse and scoring areas while the Pack seem to play a more defensive, puck possession game. How will this pan out this evening? Well it seems that New England does have the goal scorers and set up men, play a much much more physical game but also leads to more penalties, the defense plays a bit tighter as they need to and with little difference on the faceoffs this game I suspect will come down to special teams and with Aitto in one net and Laxk in the other, it looks to be a fairly obvious result we will be looking at should New England draw too many penalties.

Then again, Laxk did put up a 45 save shutout only a few games ago so he has shown he is capable of winning games by himself so let's see what he can do tonight.



Prediction



4-3 SOL for the Wolfpack