An Opinionated Piece from Revolution Broadcaster Dan Marley
Before I start, I would like to congratulate the East Coast Wizards and Vermont Lumberjacks organizations for their entry into the Eastern Hockey League. They have entered a stellar Tier III Junior A league that has a lot of potential to grow even stronger.
With the New Jersey Titans winning the one-game play-in over the Washington Junior Nationals last night, the EHL playoff schedule is now officially set. There are 16 teams that all want to hoist the very first EHL Championship trophy, and it's no surprise that the playoffs are a time where both the expected and unexpected happen.
The question on everyone's mind now is who will skate away the victors? Will it be a team that has dominated the regular season like the New Hampshire Junior Monarchs, a team that has been consistently under the radar like the Titans, or a team that has overcame a lot of struggles like the Philadelphia Revolution?
The first round of the playoffs will be a best of three and, more importantly, all three games will be played in three consecutive days. Because of this, the league rules that if opponents are separated by 125 miles or more, all games will be played at the higher-seeded venue. This is a case with the Revolution, who will be playing the Northern Cyclones of Hudson, New Hampshire beginning this Saturday at 5:00 PM; the two teams are separated by 322 miles.
These two teams have met twice in the regular season with both games going in favor of the Cyclones by a combined 12-2 score. These games, however, were played when the Revolution were in their September and October slumps. Since the last time these two teams played each other, the Revolution went 16-12-1-0.
Despite this improvement in their style of play since October 20th, the Revolution will still be up against a power house. The Cyclones missed the regular season crown by five points in the standings and are known for their home-ice advantage (17-5-0-0), special teams success (top four on the power play and penalty kill), and goal scoring (nine players with 10-plus goals). It may be scary to look at these opposing statistics, but the playoffs represent a clean slate for all involved teams.
"Everything that has happened this season," EHL Revolution Head Coach James Laux told his team after Sunday's home loss to the Titans, "no longer matters. The three straight losses to end the year, the incredible role we were on to start the second half of the season, and the slump we endured in the first 16 games no longer mean anything. Every team is zero and zero. Let's show everyone that the postseason is our time to shine."
From my perspective, I see this series being a close one for two reasons.
First, the Revolution are more rested. After the Christmas Break, they played 10 of their 14 remaining games on the road and all within a 43-day span. That's a lot of traveling. It's good to have a couple of days off to kick back and regroup.
Finally, the team has been playing a stronger style of hockey, led by their improvements in goaltending and the extra boost they received from players from the Junior B squad. The addition of goaltender Daniil Gerasimov in net and the dedication seen by call ups Devyn Dworsky and Stanislav Khokhlov have helped this club win close games and play competitively down the stretch.
If the Revolution want to win this series, they need to find a way to shut down both of Northern's special teams units and keep the puck out of their zone as much as they can. Also, they need to prevent forward Kevin Valenti from generating any offense. Valenti has dominated the EHL in offense this season, registered 35 goals and 41 assists in 44 games.
Game one of the series between the Revolution and the Cyclones will be played on Saturday March 1st at 5:00 PM. Game two is scheduled for Sunday March 2nd at noon. If a third game is necessary, both clubs will play on Monday March 3rd at 1:00 PM.
Fans can stream the games live on FastHockey.com.
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