The biggest story from the MasterCard Memorial Cup will be regarding the Spokane Chiefs dropping the trophy but another story line emerged in the final.
The Chiefs have long been looked upon as a team with four solid lines where on any given night, any player can be the hero. However, although the top line of Drayson Bowman, Mitch Wahl and Chris Bruton deserve a ton of credit for their performance, the second line may just have been the catalysts in their championship hunt.
David Rutherford, Judd Blackwater and Ondrej Roman haven't received a lot of credit for their work in leading the Chiefs. Their line scored nine of the 16 game-winning goals in the playoffs and got the offence started by scoring the first goal in 10 games.
It's no surprise then, that, the second line were at the forefront in getting the Chiefs back into Sunday's final. After trailing 1-0, Roman went wide around a defender and threw a backdoor pass to overager Blackwater whose shot eluded Josh Unice. Rutherford nearly put the Chiefs up by three goals midway through the third period on a nice individual rush from behind the net.
For the sake of argument, Rutherford's nine playoff goals in 21 games were just one shy of Justin Azevedo's 10 in 20 games. Rutherford scored two game-winning goals while also scoring three insurance goals. Azevedo, meanwhile, did not have any game-winning goals in the playoffs, nor did he have any insurance goals.
Rutherford was a former castoff of the Vancouver Giants, watching the 2006 Memorial Cup from the stands in his 18-year-old year. Two years later after being dealt by the Giants, Rutherford was an integral part of the Chiefs' run, along with his line-mates.
Not one National Hockey League team has taken a chance on Rutherford as of yet but after his strong Memorial Cup and playoff run, he's likely to be considered for a contract this summer.
The most memorable moment from this year's tournament may just be the dropping of the trophy but had it not been for a line of unsung heroes, Spokane may never reach the top of the mountain.
