Why each EU team lost in the playoffs

[ShawnGlade 1,010]

Why each EU team lost in the playoffs

After an amazing regular season by each EU team, each team fell apart, as the entire conference failed to win the cup. So what exactly went wrong?

 

Davos

Goaltending

It's weird that the team with the top goalie in the league, had goaltending as it's downfall. This being said, it's not entirely on Finn Davison here. Coming into the postseason, Davos had the league’s best defence as well as goaltending. They finished top of the league in all defensive categories, which is surprising considering their defensive woes in previous seasons. They came into the playoffs on a red hot streak, winning around 80% of their last 25 games. They found themselves in a first-round matchup with a familiar foe in Malmo. Surprisingly, the Davos offence looked strong against Malmo. Throughout the season, Finn Davison put up monster numbers, including a 0.927 save% and a 2.2 GAA. Amazingly, he put up 10 shutouts and got 37 wins. Over 25% of his wins this season were without allowing a goal. So what went differently in the playoffs? Malmo had an explosive offence that torched Davison and the Davos defence repeatedly. While it's not all on Davison to stop goals, it's hard to win with a 0.887 save%, and that's even with Davos forcing a Game 7 and losing by one goal. He also had a GAA of 2.71, with 1 shutout, meaning in games in the other 6 games of the series, he was letting in above 3 goals average, which is hard to win most of the time. Ultimately I don't think anyone on Davos blames their goalie, as he outperformed everyone during the season, but just couldn't find his stride in the postseason.

Helsinki Titans

Offence

It's hard to win a series when only 1 line is producing. In the regular season, Helsinki appeared to be one of the more well-rounded rosters. They obviously had the top-line talent, but their defence and goaltending were stellar as well. The story of the regular season, however, was their second line struggling to pick up the pace, which seemed to be the case in the playoffs as well. Their top player, Kronos Bailey had 7 points in 6 games, which isn't bad, but he should be the one carrying the dead weight. His two linemates each had 6 points, so overall their top line averaged a PPG, except the 2nd line had 7 points COMBINED all series, and that's terrible. On top of this, their scoring wasn't consistent either, in the final 3 games of the series, they scored 3 total goals, which contributed to 3 wins for Riga, which finished them off. It's not like they played bad defence either, but in the latter of the series, they averaged 1 goal per game, which doesn't win you anything unless you goalie stands on his head, which Alexander Pepper actually did, but the players in front of him couldn't get it done.

Riga Reign

Penalties

Another team with a solid regular season, Riga managed to sneak by the entire EU en route to a top seed finish. They came into the playoffs on fire like Davos, and it’s easy to tell why. They have a stacked offence with superstars and a defence core that outplays any of team on any given night. After beating out Helsinki in round one, they find themselves against Malmo. While again their offence wasn't spectacular, I'd argue that their PIMs is what lost them this series, specifically, Riga's top defensive pair. While McWolf and Hackett are good players, they did no favours for the Reign. They did an alright job playing defence itself, but the Reign were constantly on the PK, with McWolf racking up 22 PIMs, and Hackett with 34 PIMs of his own. That's an average of over 3 PIMs per game in the playoffs for Hackett, which doesn't do any favours for them, especially when 6 total Riga players combined for an average of a penalty per game. Doing the math, Riga averaged 12.63 PIMs per game, which is a little over 1/6th of the game. In just 11 games, the Reign had 139 PIMs. That's not good at all when trying to take down a top team such as Malmo, with their deadly powerplay. You can't win many games when you rely on your PK that much.

Malmo Nighthawks

Collapsed

Maybe not the answer you wanted, but Malmo just forgot that they had to play another series. They had a spectacular regular-season run, and a great, deep playoff run. The roster is littered with high-end talent, thanks in part to key FA signings and great trades by their GM. Everything pointed to Malmo making a deep run, as they sat as the 1 seed for a majority of the season, but maybe had a more difficult path to the finals when they faced division rival Davos in round one, and the Riga juggernaut in round two. The truth is, no one thing went wrong because EVERYTHING did. Swept in 4 games by the champion, Seattle Bears, Malmo's offence did alright, scoring 10 goals in 4 games, however, this was the league's best offence by a longshot, and was outscored by a team that wasn't even projected to make it out of the first round. Their defence shit the bed and couldn't stop allowing late goals, and well as their goalie turning into a pumpkin for 4 straight games. It seems like Malmo just flat out got outplayed by a team that's worse on paper. It sucks that Malmo did this well to get stomped in the finals, but Seattle earned this win after Malmo celebrated their victory a round too early.

VSN writer ShawnGlade

[Advantage 2,899]

I think you are selling Seattle short.  With the moves made they were a very dangerous team.