ecn ECN's "VHL Now!" 2nd Edition "Playoffs!"

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ECN’s “VHL Now!” 2nd Edition “Playoffs!”

And here we are again with another week and another ECN’s “VHL Now!” This week we will look at all playoff matchups and see who we think will shine and who needs to step their game up! As always, ECN is brought to you by Frostbeard Entertainment!

Let’s first take a look at North American conference and the matchup of New York Americans and Vancouver Wolves. Both teams showed very similar season statistics as there was only 1 point difference between them both. It is quite clear that Vancouver strength is in their offence as they finished their season with most Goals for in NA, whereas New York Americans are an extremely fearsome defensive juggernaut. 

That actually brings us up to the point that this matchup is very interesting and will be followed closely. For New York, they will require an extreme push of productivity from their forwards as season stats were quite lacklustre considering that none of their players was a point per game. Their closest Dan Wilinsky had 67 points in 72 games and finished only +2. If you compare that to the outstanding Vancouver’s offence, they put New York to shame as Jake Davis, Beau Louth, Rauno Palo and Shawn Glade were a point per game and Jake Davis, teams leader in points had 104 points in 72 games played! But as we said previously, New York’s secret weapon is their extremely strong defence and amazing goaltending. We at ECN don’t believe that Vancouver’s goaltenders can even be compared to amazing season Ismond Kingfisher has had. With 0.924 Save percentage and 2.36 Goals Against we rank him as the best Goaltender in VHL this season, barely beating Brick Wahl for the honours. New York’s defence is stacked with well-known names around VHL – Malenko, McWolf, Puidgemont. 

The real question then is – who is gonna prevail? Is Vancouver’s offence so strong they can break New York and send them back with a cake saying “See you next season?” Or will New York have to pack up some pizza to send to Vancouver as their summer supply of poutine will be emptied in the first day back home after playoff loss? 

The second matchup is between HC Davos Dynamo and Riga Reign. Both teams deserve to be in the playoffs consider their amazing seasons, that being said, one is clearly superior. Riga Reign in the regular season was absolutely destroying their matchups as they had the second-best Goals for and Goals Against ratio, just behind league-leading Helsinki Titans. HC Davos is probably a bit more well rounded and less top heavy team compared to Riga and that might give them an advantage in very close games down the road.

As both teams had amazing offensive numbers and both had good defensive seasons there is not much to talk and discuss in that field, what is important though is a question – who needs to star for their respective teams to give them that nudge over their opponent. For Riga Reign, the answer is quite simple – Hunter Hearst Helmsley. In his rookie season, he finished with 50 points in 72 games played and that won’t even make atoms move in the room where the ROTY will be decided. After a truly outstanding season in VHLM, he seems to be crushed or maybe just too old for this fast-paced sport. He has to step up big time and show why he is the generational talent for VHL that many hoped he will become. For Davos, John Madden is one player who had a terrible season in VHL as he was the only player on his team with negative +/- rating. He did finish his season with 64 points in 72 games played, but that being said he clearly has to get his mindset right and be ready to perform on the highest level in playoffs!

Riga or Davos? Yes, Davos is up 2:0 in the playoff series, but we have seen better comebacks, so Davos should not rest at any point as Riga is fearsome and will do all they can to move to Conference Finals. Will Riga send their regards with a nice box of “šprotes” and “kvass” or will Davos stop Riga’s time for the next few months so they can easily recover?

And that is it for this weeks “VHL Now!” Playoffs! Hope you enjoyed it and I hope you will tune in for the next weeks ECN coverage of everything important and interesting considering Off-season! Good luck and have fun!
 

Edited June 18, 2019 by FrostBeard