Wild/Bulls VHLM Playoff Matchup

[Seabass 593]

The Saskatoon Wild have done very well for themselves this season as they managed to win 50 games out of the 72 the VHLM season gives us. That's almost a 70% win record (69.4%). That was good enough to place the team at the top of the Western Conference come season's end and only behind the Mississauga Hounds in the league standings. It's pretty easy to say that there's a lot of people that slept on the Wild as nobody really considered them contenders at the beginning of the year. 

 

However well they may have done, one thing that worries me is that they stumbled to finish off the season, ending the season on a 3 game losing streak. In those 3 games the team's typical high flying offense has been drying up as they only managed 5 goals on the opposing teams (Miami, Halifax and Ottawa). Hopefully the team can turn it around come playoff time and show more of that finishing ability that got the team 273 total goals on the year, which was good for 2nd in the league. 

 

The Wild are probably pretty fortunate to be able start the first round against a Bulls team that managed to finish off their season on a even worse 8 game losing streak. They may have had the tougher schedule to finish the year since every team they lost to were playoff teams but still how are they supposed to survive the playoffs if they can't beat playoff teams? The Wild have a chance to rejuvenate their offense as the Bulls just can't seem to be able to keep pucks out of their own net as they were blown up for 40 goals during their last 8 games, an average of 5 goals a game, ouch.

 

Bulls Last 8 games

 

Game 431         7 - 3 Loss to San Diego

Game 420        7 - 3 Loss to Miami

Game 416         4 - 3 Loss to Miami

Game 412         5 - 2 Loss to Saskatoon

Game 406        4 - 1 Loss to Miami

Game 396        4 - 2 Loss to Mississauga

Game 389        4 - 1 Loss to Miami

Game 385        5 - 2 Loss to Missisauga

 

 

The Wild are the heavy favourites in this series as they've just been better than the Bulls in almost every way. The Wild seemed to have lucked out with drawing the the only team to make the VHLM playoffs with a negative goal differential (-23). The Bulls also finished the year 27 points behind the Wild in the standings. The teams don't even compare to each other when it comes to special teams either, the Bulls haven't been able to produce on the powerplay all year and it's no wonder they've had such a hard time scoring goals. To only make things tougher on the Bulls, the Wild has had the leagues best penalty killing squad so I'm sure it's not going to get any easier to get the Bulls' powerplay going in the playoffs. 

 

                                                                     Bulls                                   Wild

Place in Standings                        8th / 76Pts                      2nd / 103Pts

Total Goals                                 T9th / 208 Goals               2nd / 273 Goals

Total Goals Against                    6th / 231 GA                      3rd / 183 GA

Goal Differential                             8th/ -23                            2nd/ +90

Powerplay                                                        10th / 17.16%                       4th / 22.09%

Penalty Kill                                                         8th / 80.2%                        1st / 88.92%

 

The Bulls also doesn't seem like the type of team that can really play your typical playoff hockey grind. The Bulls were last in the league in total hits (1267) and don't seem to play with any physicality at all. That will be a problem, since the Wild have Tanky. Tanky has lead the VHLM in hits all season long and finished the year with 329 hits and has posted over 700 hits during his 2 seasons, that's almost 5 hits a game! I think Tanky will end up being a critical player in this series as the Bulls have nothing to stop him. I'm sure Tanky is eager to be able to bully and bruise the Bulls and make them his bitch throughout the series without getting much of an answer. 

 

Can the Bulls stop Tanky?

 

Season 77 329 Hits / 253 PIM

Season 76 377 Hits / 271 PIM

____________________________

706 Career VHLM Hits /  524 Career PIM

 

Now how did the two teams fare in the regular season matchups against each other? Well it doesn't look good for the Bulls going in as the Wild mostly owned the Bulls winning 6 out of 8 games against the Bulls during the season.  The Wild's Andrew Bowman shut out the Bulls 3 times and the Bulls got blown out twice (7-1 and 7-0) by the Wild in their 8 games.  The Wild ended up outscoring them 29 to 12 and it's pretty clear overall that the Bulls did not fare too well against the Wild during the regular season.

 

Regular Season Matchups

 

Game 1    Wild 2-0 Win

Game 26  Bulls 3-1 Win

Game 93 Wild 2-0 Win

Game 98 Wild 5-2 Win

Game 193 Bulls 3-2 Win

Game 127 Wild 7-1 Win

Game 254 Wild 7-0 Win

Game 412 Wild 5-3 Win

 

Team Leaders

 

Both respective teams' top scorers have very comparable stats, Willy Myers has the edge over Montana as he scored a couple more points while having played 3 less games.  Montana's plus/minus may be much better than Myer's but Montana arguably had a better supporting cast around him to help. The Wild have 5 other point per game players on their roster, the Bulls only have Bradley Senjo other than Myers. 

 

Willy Myers 

Games Played: 69 Games

Goals 59

Assists: 45

Points: 113

Plus/Minus: +21

 

Duncan Montana

Games Played: 72 Games

Goals 52
Assists: 59

Points: 111

Plus/Minus: +39

 

Both respective teams' top scorers have very comparable stats, Willy Myers has the edge over Montana as he scored a couple more points while having played 3 less games.  Montana's plus/minus may be much better than Myer's but Montana arguably had a better supporting cast around him to help. The Wild have 5 other point per game players on their roster, the Bulls only have Bradley Senjo other than Myers. 

 

Goaltending

 

As I mentioned before, Bowman has had three shutouts against the Bulls in 8 games. Bowman finished the year in the top five in the league in all 4 main goaltending statistics, wins, save percentage, GAA and Shutouts and has been very solid for the Wild throughout the season. While Bowman has the edge over his competition stat wise, Aike Van Giersbergen has been a solid goaltender as well for the defensively weak Bulls. Oddly enough half of Bowman's league leading 6 shutouts were at the hands of the Bulls so I think Bowman will prove to be a challenge for the Bulls to score on.

 

Andrew Bowman

Wins: 49

Save %: .900%

GAA: 2.49

Shutouts: 6

 

Aike Van Giersbergen

Wins: 36

Save %: .891%

GAA: 3.01

Shutouts: 3

 

In conclusion I think the Wild will destroy the Bulls this week and I hope I ain't jinxing us here by saying that because this article can definitely backfire and be used as ammunition against me.

 

1171 Words

 

EDIT: Well shit I obviously got my playoff format wrong here, The Bulls open up the playoffs against Missisauga and the Wild open up against the Las Vegas Aces. So I totally fucked up here with this article so pretend I didn't just put in all this research for a series that might not even ever happen. 

 

@BrutalBoost @124715 @TXC

Edited April 26, 2021 by Seabass

[Seabass 593]

Well time to claim the other half of this embarassment