You have got to feel for Calgary defenseman Connor O'Reilly. He has had a long and successful career, posting over 30 points per season for the majority of seasons, this while also being a solid two-way defender with a good amount of both Hits and Blocked shots as well.

Despite having such a good career, he has just barely missed out on cups, it's not even funny. He left the Wolfpack back after Season 29, and the following 2 seasons they win the cup.

He joins Winnipeg and plays there until the end of S34 to join the Calgary Dragons, Three seasons later WInnipeg becomes the champions.

Hopefully this is Connors, and the Dragons year, Connor is playing in his 14th SHL season and has seen himself regressing to a point where he is more of a depth player, this might be his last season to do it while still having an impact.


My unsung hero for this seasons playoffs will be the Manhattan Rage forward Bennett Jones. Jones is playing bottom line minutes, about 13.5 minutes per game, but despite this he is doing everything he can to get the job done for the team. The veteran forward has regressed down to below 700 TPE and the count shows you why he isn't playing top line minutes, though i doubt he'd be bad in such a position either when you look at what he does right now.

He's at 7 points, which puts him in the middle of the pack on the team. Of course with the everyone above him playing 10 more minutes per game on average than him shows that he's still the real deal.

He has scored 2 goals and assisted on 5 others. His .59 points per 20 puts him at a tied 6th place on the team together with Geoffrey Allen.

12 hits and 6 blocked shots might not be that impressive, but it's still more than a lot of people on the team.


I mean, the only true rookie on a finals team (that has actually touched the ice with his skates and not only sat on the bench) is Calgary Dragons defenseman Roman Augustus, so i guess that will be my pick.

Roman has had a great playoffs so far. Far better than most rookies has had in past seasons. He hasn't scored any goals, but he has helped on 9 of them, which puts him at 5th on the team(had he assisted on 2 more he would've been tied for 2nd)

He might be -1 in the +/-, but so is 50% of the team anyway, so i don't put too much relevance on that stat.

His defensive play has been great so far too, 5th on the team in Hits, 5th on the team in Shots Blocked. He's also a slippery son of a gun that is good at avoiding getting hit, which means he doesn't lose the puck as often.


Okay let's be honest, both teams has played good. Manhattan has opted for a more physical tactic where they are throwing a lot more hits than Calgary, they also block more shots, which shows me that Manhattan is more willing to sacrifice their bodies to get the job done. Overall Manhattan seem to go for a more overall approach, where Calgary seem to put a lot of trust in their first line. Manhattan has their scoring more spread over the lines.

Calgary has a better GF vs GA than Manhattan, but let's face it, it's only by a percent or two. Just looking blindly at the team stats i would have to say that Manahttan has the edge.

If i was the Rage coach i would do everything to shut down the Randleman line, pound the body and just keep doing what they've done, keep playing physical, but especially against that first line.

If i were the Calgary coach i might want to try to move around a little in the lines to get more production from the second line, because if the Randleman line gets shut down as i mentioned above, there won't be a lot of goals scored.