S90 VHL Playoff Preview: Toronto Legion (1) vs. Vancouver Wolves (4)

[animal74 1,822]

S90 VHL Playoffs: Matchup Preview

 Toronto Legion (1) vs. Vancouver Wolves (4) 

 

As a reward for beating the Seattle Bears in the North American Wild Card round, the Vancouver Wolves will play the North American No. 1 seed, the Toronto Legion. The teams played each other five times this season with Vancouver barely coming out on top with a 3-2 record. More on that later.

 

This playoff rivalry with a rich history started in S41 when the Wolves were closer to Toronto and playing in Quebec City. The Quebec City Meute and Toronto Legion met six times in the playoffs from S41-S64 with four of those meetings coming in the Conference Final. Toronto won four of those series, three of them on their way to winning the Continental Cup. In fact, the Legion were the Meute’s final playoff opponent ever as Toronto beat Quebec in the S64 best-of-three Wild Card round 2 games to none on route to the first of consecutive Cups. The history once the Meute moved to Vancouver took a bit of a 180 as Vancouver has won all four previous meetings in the playoffs from S67-S81, with three of those series wins being steps along the path to the Wolves winning the Continental Cup. But with their last meeting having taken place nine seasons ago, let’s see what advantages might be in Toronto’s favor in S90 as recent history is not.

 

S90 Team Leaders

Goals

43 – Mac Atlas  

@v.2

41 – Wann Kerr  

@VattghernCZ

 

Assists

64 – Pierre Emile Bouchard 

@Gaikoku-hito

60 – Siyan Yasilievich 

@badcolethetitan

 

Points

95 – Ronan Lavelle 

@Arce

89 – Wann Kerr 

@VattghernCZ

 

 

Season Series

Vancouver won the season series 3-2 but all three of their wins were by one goal and two were in the shootout. Toronto scored 13 goals against the Wolves in their two victories and the Legion’s power play feasted on the Wolves’ penalty kill all series scoring 8 goals on 26 chances. Toronto was the only team (Los Angeles Stars was the other) to score 6 or more goals twice against the Wolves so we know they can score in bunches. Also, Vancouver won’t have the benefit of the shootout in the playoffs. As for goaltending, both Joel Castle @animal74 and Brandt Fuhr @Tate were both busy but could have been better. Neither goalie faced less than 31 shots in any game in the series and while Castle’s numbers (3.10 GAA, 0.918 SV%) were slightly better than Fuhr’s (3.87, 0.902), the Wolves’ veteran netminder won the series 3-2. Anyway you look at it, it was a fairly close series.

 

Series Leaders

Goals

6 – Mac Atlas 

@v.2

5 – Wann Kerr 

@VattghernCZ

 

Assists

8 – Siyan Yasilievich 

@badcolethetitan

7 – Pierre Emile Bouchard 

@Gaikoku-hito

 

Points

11 – Siyan Yasilievich 

@badcolethetitan

8 – FISTED ANALLY BY A CIRCUS MONKEY Analfist 

@STZ

 

Storylines

 

Experience vs Inexperience

There is a lot of playoff experience between these two teams! Seven players in this series have played in 50 or more playoff games and there is a combined 17 Cup Final appearances accounted for. Two of the four active Kanou Trophy (Playoff MVP) winners are in this series (Ronan Lavelle @Arce, S85, and Brandt Fuhr @Tate, S86 co-winner – the others are Jesse Teno, S88, and Jake Thunder, S89, in the Davos/London series) and there are members from four of the last six Championship teams.

 

The Toronto Legion added some playoff experience during the off-season as they had none of their own to speak of due to lounging in the bottom of the league from S85-S89. In addition to acquiring Jimmy MacElroy @Xflexz from Vancouver the season before, the Legion have four players with a total of 218 playoff games played, five Cup Final appearances, and three Cup rings. Interestingly, defenseman Siyan Yasilievich @badcolethetitan leads all players in this series with 74 career playoff games.

 

Vancouver on the other hand, with two finals appearances in the last four seasons, including winning the S86 Continental Cup, have 375 combined games of playoff experience (before their S90 Wild Card series with Seattle) led by 192 games among five of their forward group. The Wolves have 12 Cup Final series and five Cup rings among them.  While the larger number of games fittingly translates into a larger number of playoff points than Toronto in total, the current Wolves have scored a combined 87* playoff goals – only two more than the Legion’s 85.

 

Nowhere is the experience discrepancy more evident than in net. Fuhr has 61* playoff games on his resume while this will be Castle’s first taste of the post-season.

 

Vancouver's Wann Kerr and Toronto's Jimmy MacElroy watch a shot in front of Joel Castle. 

 

Familiar Faces

As is to be expected in the small world of the VHL, there will be a lot of old teammates facing each other on both sides of the puck. Most significantly is Toronto defenseman Jimmy MacElroy @Xflexz who came over a couple of seasons ago from Vancouver and will be facing his old mates, with a few still remaining from the S86 Continental Cup winning team. Toronto’s Jimi Jaks @kelvi and Vancouver’s Oreo McFleury @JB123 were key contributors in the Olso Storm’s third consecutive run to the S87 Renaissance Cup but ultimately lost to Cologne in seven games. Some old VHLM teammates will also get reacquainted: Toronto’s Bobby Bob @Baby Boomer and Vancouver’s Liv Slater @Subject056 (S87 Houston Bulls), Toronto’s Joel Castle @animal74 and Vancouver’s Wann Kerr @VattghernCZ (S85 Prime Minister’s Trophy winning and Founder’s Cup finalist Las Vegas Aces), and Toronto’s Tomas Sogaard @Brandon and Vancouver’s Brandt Fuhr @Tate (S82 Mexico City Kings).

 

Offense vs Defense

They say defense wins championships but a good offense helps as well and this series has two of the league's top teams in both categories. Thought to be an offensive juggernaut at the beginning of the season, the Legion instead won more often than not with a stingy defense and ended up with the second-lowest goals against in the league (174, 2.42 GAA). The Wolves on the other hand did sport the league’s third-best offense to the tune of 240 goals for (3.33 per game). Neither team were bad on the other end either though as Vancouver had the 7^th best defense (190 GA, 2.64) and Toronto scored at the 6^th-best clip in the league (229 GF, 3.18). Both teams ended the season with five players scoring 27 or more goals. As noted earlier, Toronto won the special teams battle in their season series by a wide margin which is surprising as Vancouver’s power play thorough out the season was a hair better, scoring one more man advantage goal than Toronto for a slightly better percentage. Toronto has the slight advantage on the penalty kill as they were ranked 8^th in the VHL and Vancouver was 10^th. Regardless, both teams will want to stay out of the box as much as possible. And, of course, you can’t talk defense without talking goalies. Castle had better numbers during the regular season although he and Fuhr posted the same number of wins (38) and Fuhr had six shutouts to Castle’s four.

 

This will be a fascinating series to watch as games could end up being barnburners or nail-biters and there probably will be a few of each. Will the upstart Legion be able to get to Fuhr early and make the Wolves pay on the power play or will the Wolves’ experience and championship pedigree shine through and shut down the Legion’s deep forward group? We’ll know after seven games (or less)!

 

*All stats until S89, not including the S90 Wild Card series versus the Seattle Bears

Edited October 4, 2023 by animal74

[AJW 2,157]

I’m salty Seattle lost now I would’ve loved reading a Seattle v Toronto matchup preview. Awesome article either way

[animal74 1,822]

3 hours ago, AJW said:

I’m salty Seattle lost now I would’ve loved reading a Seattle v Toronto matchup preview. Awesome article either way

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it. Maybe next season!

[VattghernCZ 985]

It's been a nailbiter so far. Damn, Castle is on fire!

[Arce 755]

Great read as always, Animal! It's been a blast being apart of this team.

[animal74 1,822]

Claim 2/2