Lose Season Recap / Riga vs Warsaw Playoff Preview

[youloser1337 1,049]

This has been a rocky week for Justin Lose. The season has just wrapped up and Lose has produced his 2nd worst season in points and his worst +/- rating in 4 seasons in the VHL.

Justin Lose's career stats:

 

Season 76 - 23 Goals - 41 Assists - 64 Points - -11
Season 77 - 23 Goals - 35 Assists - 58 Points - -7
Season 78 - 37 Goals - 45 Assists - 82 Points - -7
Season 79 - 32 Goals - 29 Assists - 61 Points - -12

 

As you can see here there are some positives (not much) to the season for Lose. It was his 2nd best season in goals, which is surprising since he was put on the 2nd line fairly early into the season. The big hit was the assists which is the worst in all of the seasons. Of course, the +/- is the worst in his career doesn't help. 

 

"Well, it was a rough season for me. Being demoted to the 2nd line really hurt my motivation and I just couldn't recover from it. This is a huge wake-up call too since my contract is almost up. My contract expires after Season 80. This has been I'm hoping this rest time before the playoffs start will get me motivated again. Nothing in the regular season matters now. It's all about the cup now."

 

 

The playoffs start soon and Riga has achieved 3rd place in the EU conference. This means they forgo the play-in round and face off against the Warsaw Predators in round 1.

As a little preview here is the regular season battle between the Riga Reign and the Warsaw Predators:

 

Game 21 - Riga @ Warsaw - 3 - 1 - Riga
Game 71 - Warsaw @ Riga - 2 - 0 - Riga
Game 369 - Riga @ Warsaw - 1 - 6 - Warsaw
Game 420 - Warsaw @ Riga - 2 - 7 - Warsaw
Game 437 - Warsaw @ Riga - 6 - 2 - Riga
Game 451 - Riga @ Warsaw - 3 - 7 - Warsaw

 

The season series tied 3-3 with Warsaw outscoring Riga 23 - 17.

 

Lexi Glass leads Warsaw with 47 Goals compared to Cabe McJake who only had 41 goals this season.
 

Aloe Dear had 77 assists and Linus Zetterstrom had 60 assists on Riga.
 

Aloe Dear had an incredible 121 points for Warsaw which makes them ranked 4th in the overall points in the league. The leader for Riga in points was Cabe McJake with 91 points.
 

The goalie duel is going to be a tough one with Vsevolod Askarov getting the starts in Warsaw. Positing 45 wins and 2 shutouts with a .917 save percentage and a 3.03 goals-against average. Compared to Zamboni Driver who is retiring at the end of the playoffs, he posted 35 wins and 2 shutouts for a .919 save percentage alongside a 2.86 goals-against average.

 

These two teams are evenly matched and are going to have an incredible series. This will be the first time since Season 76 that the Riga Reign had made playoffs. Is this the start of a new playoff streak for Riga and is this the conclusion of the rebuild? Or is the retirement of Zamboni Driver going to start a new rebuild again? A lot of questions going into this series.

[JB123 722]

Good read. There is a lot of cool stats and information in the article. Format is great, bolding important info like stat lines and scores make it easy to key in on them as a reader. Dialogue in italics is a good idea too. Intro and conclusion add to it as well. Nice job, 10/10.