Login

Sami · 03-23-2019, 10:05 AM

S46 SMJHL Playoffs
First Round Analysis

The S46 SMJHL Regular Season is finished and the playoffs are straight ahead. The Halifax Raiders, Vancouver Whalers, Detroit Falcons and Colorado Raptors finished on the places 7 through 10 and weren't able to get the first round bye, thus facing each other in the First Round of the playoffs. The Raiders will face the Raptors in a 7 game series while the Whalers will take on the Falcons. Here I want to take a closer look at the first matchup and predict a possible outcome for this series:

Raptors

Colorado Raptors (10) VS (7) Halifax Raiders raiders

Season Review: The Colorado Raptors finished in 10th place, last in the SMJHL league and concluded a very bad season. After finishing 7th last season actually making it to the 3rd Round in last season's playoffs, the was certainly some buzz around the Raptors this season. But losing top forwards Zivan Zidek, Alexander Selich and Konstantin Volashin along with players like Lillie Jacobs to the SHL was too much for the Raptors and they ended the season with by far the worst record, going 18-26-6 for 42 points. After they made it to the third round last year after starting in the first round as well, they have to be the underdogs this year, finishing with 6 fewer points than the next best team, the Detroit Falcons.

The Halifax Raiders had a season of up and down. After starting the season with four straight wins actually nine wins in their first eleven games, and being able to start another five game winning streak just shortly after, they followed that up with an incredible eleven game streak without a win, going 0-9-2 during that stretch. What looked like a team guaranteed to get a first round bye was an absolute tire fire at that point. A late four game winning streak helped them at least making it to 7th place and just missing the first round bye. They made a blockbuster trade late in the season, acquiring star defenseman Nikolai Evans and giving up promising rookie Jaguar Johnson in an attempt to save this season, but the Raiders only went 6-7-1 after that. It remains to be seen if the Raiders can some damage in the playoffs but if not, this trade won't look good for the Raiders.

Season Series: The regular season series between the Raptors and the Raiders actually was closer than you'd think. While Raptors ended their season with an abysmal record and finishing last by far, the series against the Raiders was pretty close. While the Raptors were able to win two games, the Raiders managed to win three and so winning the series. But in this case, the regular season matchups and not helpful to determine a clear cut favorite for this series.

Player Comparison: The Colorado Raptors are very top heavy as their first line of Knute Knurtsson, Parker Smeb and Jakub Novak did the heavy lifting this season, scoring 44, 41 and 36 points respectively. The No. 1 defenseman, Cassius Darrow, finished this season with very good 32 points after actually being the Raptors topscorer the season prior. While Nick Brain and Eric Vanderberg provided some solid secondary scoring, the only rookie who could impress was first round draft pick Juulius Smonk, scoring 17 points in 50 games. More was expected of top prospect Julio Tokolosh who wasn't even able to crack the ten point barrier. Jake Peralta was pretty solid also, scoring 13 points.

The scoring for the Halifax Raiders definitely was way more spread out which is always helpful in the playoffs as the top guys often get shutdown by the top defensive units. The team was lead by top scorer Troy Reynolds with 36 points, followed by Mr. Faceoffs with solid 33 points. Then you have top rookie Joseph Laraque with incredible 29 points which gave the Raiders some unexpected elite secondary scoring. Laraque's only trailing Vancouver Whalers' Cullen Gray in the Rookie of the Year race. The acquisition of Michael Scarn didn't work out very well for the Raiders as he only scored two points in ten games there after scoring 26 in 40 for the Raptors before. For him, this will be a very interesting series against his old team. Top defensive scorer was Dominic Montgomery with 28 points. Top acquisition Nikolai Evans wasn't able to get going in Halifax so far, scoring only 6 points in 16 games and being a -8 in only 16 games. He has to step up in the series.

Evaluating the goaltending is tough for the Raptors. Their backup Aleksandr Aleksandrov had a very strong regular seaon with a 91.2 SV% and 1.84 GAA, but in only 13 games. Their starter Yuri Ushakov however had a season to forget, only saving 88.3% of the shots with a GAA of 3.00 in 43 games.
Funny enough, it is the same picture with the Halifax Raiders. Their backup Justin Willis stopped 90.6% of the shots and had a GAA of 2.40 in 14 games while their starter, Mike McKorsy, only stopped 88.8% of the shots with a GAA of 2.75 in 43 games. So both teams seriously have to consider going with their backups for this series.

Key Matchup: The key matchup will be between the top defenseman of both teams, Cassius Darrow for the Raptors and Nikolai Evans for the Raiders. Darrow had an incredible regular season again and is looking to bring this in the regular season as well. Evans did have a solid regular season, too, scoring 27 points in 50 games but he needs to get used to his new home in Halifax to become the X-Factor in the series that is to come. Even if he can't get on the scoresheet as much as he likes to, he has to step up his defensive game and stop the Colorado Raptors heavy top line of Knurtsson, Smeb and Novak. The team who has the better No. 1 defenseman will have a big advantage in this series.

Team Comparison: The Colorado Raptors have a big problem, and that is scoring goals. Besides the very good top line and top defender Darrow, there isn't much else on the roster. The Raptors finished with only 2.42 GPG which is the worst in the league. The Raiders were able to score 2.7 goals per game, good for 5th overall. Both teams are equally bad defenisely though, letting in 2.88 (Halifax) and 2.90 (Colorado) GPG respectively, which is only good for places eight and nine. Only the Lethbridge Lions are worse. This leads to the Raptors being by far the worst team in GF/GA % with 83.45%, Halifax being 7th here. Funny enough, that reflects their actual position in the standings so that is a stat that is very important to consider.

The Raptors have both the better Powerplay and Penalty Kill though, although that is very close. The Raptors are around 17% on the PP and 85% on the PK while the Raiders are at 15% on the PP and 83% on the PK. Both teams are very good on the PK and both teams could be better on the PP although the Raptors do have the slight advantage here. Still, this is pretty much a tie.

Prediction: It would be foolish to go against the Halifax Raiders in this series. Although the season series was very tight, the Raiders just had the better overall season performance. They also have the advantage that their even strength play is just a lot stronger than that of the Raptors and it is being carried by the whole team. If the Raiders are able to shutdown the Raptors top line, there isn't much else to stop and that makes for a very easy matchplan. It will be a pretty tight series though because the top line for the Raptors will come through and they still have the very good defenseman Cassius Darrow on the backend who can provide some scoring.

Final Prediction: Halifax Raiders in 6.

ztevans · 03-23-2019, 10:50 AM

Nikolai is mostly just looking forward to embarrassing Anastasia O'Koivu.

***luke*** · 03-23-2019, 11:50 AM

Whalers keep on putting out media Whalers

FourFour · 03-23-2019, 11:28 PM

hhh81 · 03-23-2019, 11:39 PM

The Colorado Raptors have 18 playoff wins over the last two seasons . Don't count them out! Ask the S44 Detroit Falcons or S45 Anchorage Armada what happens! Smile