Deep Dive on the S74 First Round of Playoffs

With the first round completed I wanted to take a look at the four matchups and briefly discuss what may be coming in the second half. The SHL is very generous when it comes to playoff spots with twelve teams in the SMJHL getting to compete. Unfortunately this left out the Carolina Kraken (tougher conference when we look at overall league standings here which left the 10th best team out) and St. Louis Scarecrows. On the opposite end of the spectrum we saw the league-leading Quebec City Citadelles, the Maine Timber, the Detroit Falcons, and the Nevada Battleborn with a bye. I actually quite like the playoff heavy inclusion of teams here as it keeps the season alive for more players but also awards the top 4 teams with a meaningful reward for playing well in the regular season. So, shoutout to this format.

On to the first matchup, we had the Anchorage Armada and the Vancouver Whalers. This was the most even matchup when it came to standings as Anchorage finished 7th with 74 points and the Whalers were 8th with 71 points. The biggest stat that stood out to me when comparing these teams was the goal differential. Its clear that Anchorage was the cutoff for middle of the league with a goal differential of 74 between the two. Both teams had a solid record at home with 20+ wins and only 11/10 losses but were less than stellar on the road. Because of the goal differential and the home game success I had Anchorage winning this series. This would end up being true but the series was much closer than I expected going the full distance. Both teams managed to steal one on the road and two overtime games were needed. Props to Vancouver for pushing Armada to seven.

The second matchup was the Kelowna Knights and Colorado Raptors. This was the most lopsided seedings but, spoiler alert, no body told Kelowna that. Colorado had the second most points in the league with 90 while Kelowna was 13th with 46. Its no secret the Raptors were heavily favored going into the matchup. The biggest kryptonite for the Raptors was their shootout record at 0-4 while the Knights were 3-0. While the Knights managed to force one overtime, the secret sauce in shootouts never materialized. I think most users would have had this game going 4-5 games due to the disparity in the regular season but the Knights put up a great fight in pushing the series to six games. Kelowna stole game 2 and even had the 2-1 lead in the series at one point before Colorado promptly stole game 4 and would push on to take the whole series.

Hopefully no bias with the third series run down as Newfoundland Berserkers took on the Great Falls Grizzlies. Newfoundland ended the regular season at 79 points while Great Falls was 12th with 48 points. Another series with quite a bit of disparity in the regular season, most users predicted this to go to the Berserkers in 4-5 games as well. The Berserkers had a relatively even performance whether they were at home or away. Their home record was 18-13-2 and while away was 20-12-1. Great Falls however struggled on both fronts and it ended up showing as Berserkers took this series in 5 games making for the shortest series so far. Watch for this team to cause headaches with their away performance being better than their home showing which is likely to happen as the higher seeds with byes enter the fray.

And the final series of the first round was the Regina Elks and the Yukon Malamutes. Yukon came in as the better seed with 75 points which was 6th best on the league while Regina only had 54 points which ranked 11th. Of the teams with a positive differential, Yukon had the least with +25 which had Regina fans excited to play upset. Yukon got off to a hot start with 2 wins at home before Regina also took care of business at home tying the series at 2-2. This would be a trend in the series as the home team went on to win every matchup in a very exciting 7 games series. This could prove to be either beneficial to Yukon for getting some meaningful ice time or detrimental for tiring out their lines before round 2 starts. I'm excited to see how Yukon carries their momentum forward.

Overall I think the first round of the playoffs provided a number of exciting matchups with none going the minimum four games. With the developmental league focused on keeping people excited about their player and engaged with the community, having 12 teams involved is great for the league and showed in just how competitive these games were.


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