Three in a Row!

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Throughout the 91-season history of the VHL, three-peats have not been a particularly common occurrence. The S48-S50 Toronto Legion & S80-S82 Vancouver Wolves have attained the feat at the VHL level, and it's never been done in the VHLM.

 

As of yesterday, you can add one more team to that list, the first at the VHLE level, with the Cologne Express capturing a third consecutive Renaissance Cup with a five-game series win over Vasteras. What figured to be a close matchup on paper was turned on its head by the play of Express netminder Clark, who simply doesn't miss in the post-season. Clark posted an 8-1 record with a 1.55 GAA and .951 SV% in the playoffs and is quite likely going to take home a third Playoff MVP award in three seasons. Last year, Clark went 8-2-2 with a 2.28 GAA and .938 SV%. This time around, he took his game even one level higher. Across his VHLM and VHLE career so far, Clark has a ridiculous 28-6-2 record.

 

The Express dropped the opening game of the Renaissance Cup finals, but came back with a vengeance to win the next four and capture the title. Joshua Schwarzer's team-high 5th goal of the playoffs marked the OT winner that sent Cologne into a frenzy.

 

In a league with high player turnover like the VHLE, such a run is incredibly impressive and also unlikely. Each succeeding year, keeping the run going only gets more difficult as teams are built for short contention windows and players move on to the next stage of their careers frequently. This is partly why the three-peat has never been seen in the VHLM, and those at the helm of the Express during this run deserve a ton of credit. Next up for them will be trying to figure out a way to run it back for an unheard of 4th win in a row.