Hey everyone it's Dale Murphy over here! Been a while since my last piece, but retirement doesn't quite make the money it used to. Okay fine, retirement doesn't make any money. Either way, I've been assigned to follow the Philadelphia Forge. The Forge are coming off a great season, in which they finished second in the league with 102 points (50-14-2), but fell in game seven of the Challenge Cup finals to the Edmonton Blizzard. The offense was led by Red Kirkby, Ricky Koivu, and Graj Virrok each with over 100 points. In net, BASE PACK put up a respectable .903 Sv%, right in line with his career numbers.
But this season has not gotten out to the same start. Red Kirkby, Ricky Koivu, Evil Allbran and Graj Virrok still lead the offense. BASE PACK has actually improved to a .928 Sv%. Still the Forge are just 9-3-3 and just 7th in the league. However, they do have the league's best +42 goal differential. So there maybe more to come from the Forge, who seem to be on the short end of a lot of close games.

I recently caught up with Forge player, Johnny Shuffleboard. The youngster is in middle of his first campaign in the SHL. He shared "Wow it's tough. These guys are really good. He got his first goal under his belt, and he is looking for more. "I like my role. Plenty of time, and trying to round out the d side of my game as well."" As a junior, Shuffleboard was the SMJHL's best PP QB. In the recent WJC, Shuffleboard won the award as the best defender in the tournament, and was the runner-up for tournament MVP. He scored two goals in the third period of the gold medal game, turning a 2-1 deficit to a 3-2 win for the U.S., earning them a three peat as gold medalists. "Certainly a cool moment. It doesn't get old, even after three in a row. And to have such a big part of the scoring, scoring is a huge part of my game, but for USA a lot of my role was on defense, it was great to score. Certainly loved how it helped by defensive game playing there." Go States he added with a grin.

This has been the Dale Murphy report

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Signing off,
Dale Murphy


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