Wolves eliminated

[Greg_Di 1,030]

 

Losing in Game 7 of the Season 68 playoffs to Calgary will forever be a painful memory for the Vancouver Wolves, and goaltender Greg Eagles still hasn't stopped thinking about it. Everyone was expecting the Wolves to wrap up the series in game 6 but that did not happen.

 

“I don’t think you ever get over that, i’m still getting flashbacks," Eagles said earlier today during the team’s locker clean-out day "But you know, you got to realize it’s only one game, and it is what it is. You have to come back stronger next season, you can’t sit here and dwell on it, you have to pick yourself up and focus on the next season. Dwelling on it won’t change the outcome but preparing and training for next season can change the outcome if it happens again"

 

Eagles played very well in his first ever playoffs as the teams starter, posting a .929 save percentage, a 2.56 goals against average over 5 games, 2 first-star awards and a shutout. Eagles was unable to play the first 2 games of the series because the backup goalie was being forced to play due to league rules.

 

Unfortunately for Eagles and the Wolves, Game 7 against the Wranglers was not one of his better performances of the playoffs. Eagles allowed 5 goals on 44 shots as the Wranglers finally beat the Wolves. This has been the 3^rd time in a row that this series went to 7 games and the first time the Wranglers won.

 

One challenge that Eagles and the rest of the Wolves will deal with this off-season is a shorter period of recovery time due to the game 7 and national team commitments to most of the players.

 

“I think the mental aspect is the biggest thing, especially if it’s a disappointing loss like that," Eagles said. "You have to just kind of unwind and try to forget about hockey as much as you can during the off-season” Eagles Continued ”But then again, you only have a short period of time until the next season starts, so you have to plan some time for your body to recover but also get in some training time. But I think mentally, it’s just such a grind, hockey season, you know you play so many regular season games plus another bunch during the playoffs if you make it, so mentally it’s very draining. And the fresher mentally you can be, the better off you are, I think.”

 

The Wolves did not do the best job keeping Eagles fresh last season for the playoffs. With a revolving door of backups last season and due to paperwork errors because of all the backups caused the league to initiate a punishment for the Wolves. The punishment was put into effect because the Wolves did not start their backup goalie the minimum of 8 games required. This cost the Wolves by forcing them to play their backup for the first 2 games of the playoffs as well as not having Eagles as fresh as he could be heading into the playoffs.

 

The Wolves will need to employ a new strategy during the upcoming season in making sure the backup plays the games they should. This will allow Eagles to be prepared and more rested for a long playoff run.