The End of a Rookie Season and The Gasoline on the fire - Spencer Elsby's S71 Playoff Experience

[Spence King 387]

May 4^th 2020 The Philadelphia Reapers are going into game 7 of the 1^st round of the playoffs, in great playoff hockey and extremely back and forth and mostly unpredictably of 6 games so far.This 4-5 first round seeding put two heavyweights with up against each other with Philly against the Offensive Dynamos of the Vegas Aces in a series that debatably could’ve been the Finals matchup if the seedings were different. Ultimately when the buzzer sounded after 60 minutes the score clock showed nothing the Philly players of fans wanted to see... Las Vegas Aces 7- Philadelphia Reapers 3. A very strong S71 season from the Reapers had come to an abrupt halt last night. Philly had a very strong season all the way out consistently being a threat to the top teams all season and sitting in 2^nd place for most of it , were unable to make get the bounces they needed to make round two. This Game 7 marks Spencer Elsby 1^st career game seven, some invaluable experience , he managed to put one in the net during the crucial game seven , in the end him and his reaper teammates had to say farewell as that will be the last game wearing the Reapers jersey together, it was evidently truly emotional

 

Ending his rookie season with an iron man 72 Games played with the Philadelphia Reapers eye popping deference racked up 11 Goals, 24 Assists ,3 Game Winners and 83 Shots blocked putting him 2^nd only behind all star defensive defenceman Jason Goeson. The 11 Goals has Elsby as the leading Goal scorer from the blue line for Philly and his offensive ability to quarterback the Power play has been on the highlight reels every week. Elsby is currently sitting at 11th Ovr on the VHL S72 Draft boards moving up 7 spots from rankings published earlier this season. Scouts have Elsby potential late 1^st and high 2^nd round pick of the VHL draft. Elsby also was selected as a 16 year old in his rookie VHLM season to represent Team Asia in the S71 WJC. Team Asia went on to be the #1 seed team after round robin and making it to the gold medal game , where things obviously did end the way Asia would have preferred that had a great tournament and played some great hockey. Elsby but up an outstanding performance registering 1Goal ,8 Assists for 9 points in 8 GP (over a point per game) during round robin and another 3 Assists throughout the Semi Final and Gold Medal game for a total of  Elsby as a rookie finished the tournament 3^rd In defenceman scoring in very fine fashion. 

 

After the unfortunate conclusion to the Spences first playoff run ending In a game 7. Elsby continued to grow defensively and there were a couple games Elsby lead the entire reapers team in Time on Ice. While maintaining disciplined Elsby led the Reapers in Shots blocked with 14. Elsby was able to score his first playoff goal in the biggest game of his VHLM career (VHLM not International ) in game 7 and another 2 assists along the way during the 7 game playoff push. Spencer was quoted after the game saying “ Its obviously disappointing and I know we have the skill on our team to have made it further and it hurts knowing the season over and im not going to play with a lot of  my best friends and new family maybe ever again, however the bond we made over this amazing season and I cant say it enough how fortunate I am to have been drafted  to such an amazing organization @DMaximus really made my rookie year the best experience I could have ever dreamed of. This rookie year was an amazing stepping stone and has left me with nothing but great memories with the team and gasoline on my fire to just keep improving, this just motivates me more and I cant wait till we play the Aces next season”