VHL This Week (November 23, 2014)

[Ninetyfourgoalie 168]

VHL This Week

Season 40 Edition 8

 

Welcome back to VHL This Week!  The playoffs are now underway and with the first round complete, we are heading ever closer to the Continental Cup Finals!  Be sure to follow each and every game to see who will emerge victorious.

 

Announcements

 

Round one of the playoffs has been completed with the Calgary Wranglers and Riga Reign each taking their respective series to advance to the conference finals.  The Reign followed their seven game series with with a surprising sweep of the Cologne Express to head to the Cup finals as they await their opponent.

 

Make sure to check out Edition 217 of the VHL Magazine!

 

For all the writers, make sure to sign up here for the writing ranks that will be starting soon!  A great way to earn some extra TPE.

 

Game Discussion

 

At this point, we're well into the playoffs with the conference finals nearing the conclusion.  With a total of three series decided, it only makes sense to look at the final games of each one.  This season's playoffs have been exciting thus far and it's shaping up to be a great cup finals!

 

The first game we'll look at is this first round battle between the Meute and Wranglers.  This game seven was about as intense as anyone could have expected it to be as it was a hard-fought game from beginning to end.  It was largely a battle between goaltenders Martin Brookside of Calgary and Lennox Moher of Quebec, who combined to stop the first 93 shots of the game.  It took three periods and nearly a full extra frame for anyone to finally find the back of the net as Calagary's Godavari Yumalatopinto scored after Giygas recovered a rebound and sent it back to Yumalatopinto for the game-winner.  Overall, this game seven epitomized the entire series, which was close from beginning to end.

 

Next we'll take a look at game seven of the first round matchup between two European Conference foes.  After losing out on the top seed, the Riga Reign and Helsinki Titans were forced to face off in round one.  The series would end up going the distance with Riga over coming a 2-0 deficit early in the series to force a winner takes all game seven.  The game started off with a Willem Janssen goal to give the Titans an early lead.  But this would be all the Titans could muster offensively as the Reign shut them down the rest of the game while Robin Gow's two second period goals helped lead the way to five straight and a 5-1 win for the Reign, who came up big when everything was on the line.

 

The final game spotlight is this big game between the Reign and Express.  The Express came into the season with one of the youngest teams in the league yet managed to finish the season with the best record in the European Conference.  The veteran Reign, though, looked to spoil this success by aiming for the sweep in game four.  They took little time to show that they were for real with Brennan McQueen putting the puck past Blaine Olynick less than two minutes into the game for the first goal.  And the Reign would not slow down until the finals whistle blew, outshooting the Express by an incredible 54 shots to 12 as Mike Szatkowski picked up the easy shutout by a score of 4-0.  With an aging team, the Reign will be looking to take advantage of this opportunity in the finals as they find themselves just four wins away from a Continental Cup.

 

TPE Earning

 

 

Head to the VHL Magazine, where all you have to do is select a series of numbers to win free player store cash or TPE!  More details can be found in the magazine and make sure to check back each week to see if you've won!

 

Be sure to keep your eyes on the VHL Fantasy Zone, where you can earn uncapped points for correctly predicting the winners and score of selected games.  Check if you've won TPE from the Round 1 Pickem and Predict the Score tasks!  Also keep your eyes open for Round 2 Pickem and Predict the Score results to be posted and for the Continental Cup Finals tasks to be opened!