An exciting and expansion-heavy playoffs

[solas 1,952]

Season 75 marks just the third season of the VHL’s expanded ten-team playoff format.  And already, even before a puck has been dropped in either conference final, we’ve seen an incredible amount of excitement and upheaval.  It began with two exciting wild card series, as Chicago shockingly swept Seattle over three games and Moscow dispatched London 3-1.  The intrigue continued as all four conference semifinals went to seven games - a first ever since the playoffs were expanded to eight teams in Season 69. 

 

And with the recent game 7 results, this season marks another first: all four conference finalists are expansion teams. It’s a sign that the new franchises of VHL are starting to make their mark and establish themselves in the league, just as Quebec/Vancouver and Cologne (RIP) did before them.  In North America, the young Chicago Phoenix look to continue their unlikely playoff run as the most successful of the S73 expansion teams thus far.  They come up against the DC Dragons, however, who are in the midst of their furthest ever playoff run and will look for big performances from players like Stone Wolski, Benny Graves, Groovy Dood, and Guy Lesieur.  In Europe, another team from the wildcard series looks to go all the way as the Moscow Menace (the only one of these four to have won a cup before) look to finish off goaltender Raymond Bernard’s legendary career with a second championship ring while Roque Davis and S74 MVP Mikko Lahtinen hope to continue their playoff heroics.  Their opponents are the Malmo Nighthawks, who joined the season after Moscow and find themselves in a similar situation with a franchise icon and future hall-of-famer as Condor Adrienne hopes to finally reach the promised land in his final season.  

 

Of course, there are more players, teams, and possible subplots that I could’ve mentioned but this is also already too long and wordy for a VHL.com article anyways.  Here’s hoping for an interesting finish to the S75 playoffs.

[Bobo 514]

Let’s go Chi-Town!

[Victor 11,021]

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