With a couple of weeks left in the regular season the WHL conference races aren’t any more clear than they were a week ago.
Eight clubs have clinched playoff spots – six of them in the East – but who the top seeds are and the playoff seeding is far from settled.
Brandon catches Lethbridge
Friday night in Lethbridge, the Hurricanes hosted the Wheat Kings in a pivotal Eastern Conference game. Coming into it the Hurricanes held onto a slim one-point advantage for the top spot in the Conference. Lethbridge has been treading water of late, allowing Brandon to reel them in.
The Wheat Kings struck for four unanswered goals in the third period to erase a 2-1 Hurricanes lead and would go on to win 5-2. Nolan Patrick picked up one of those markers, extending his impressive goal-scoring streak to 12 straight games – the streak would end the next night for Patrick.
The win vaulted the Wheat Kings over Lethbridge into the top spot in the East. Lethbridge bounced back the next night behind two scores from Jordy Bellerive to hammer Edmonton. The win, combined with a Brandon overtime loss to Medicine Hat brought the two clubs square again.
It was the final head-to-head matchup for the two teams and both have nine games remaining on their schedule. Brandon has the easier remaining schedule with six home games including their last four all at home. Lethbridge only has three more home games and have not fared as well away from the Enmax Centre. The Hurricanes road record is an average 15-14-1-0 and they’re still playing without Giorgo Estephan who is listed as out for another week or two.
With the way the teams have been trending and given their remaining schedules, it looks like Brandon may repeat as the top seed in the Eastern Conference.
Victoria jumps over Kelowna
The Victoria Royals had their 11-game win streak snapped a couple of weeks ago. How did they respond to that? After losing to Seattle and in overtime at Portland the Royals have steamed out to a new six-game win streak. That has propelled them to first place in the B.C. Division and Western Conference as they hold a one-point lead over Kelowna.
We’ve been waiting for the Royals to come back to earth all year but it no longer seems like that’s inevitable. They continue to be a strong possession team and according to Prospects-Stats have an estimated fenwick of 54.69 combined with a shooting percentage of 11 – which is in the top-five – and the league’s best save percentage of 92.21. That does mean they have the highest PDO (103.21) in the WHL but the regression that might suggest has yet to occur.
Head coach Dave Lowry continues to pull all the right strings and is getting big production out of players considered to be undersized. Five-foot-six rookie Matthew Phillips has 70 points and five-foot-five centre Dante Hannoun has been just as impressive with 52 points.
Will their smaller players hold up in the playoffs, say against a physical team like Prince George? We will have to wait and see.
Rockets suffer another loss
A week after shutting down Nick Merkley for the season the Rockets announced Monday that goalie Jackson Whistle was also finished for the season. Whistle is in need of surgery to repair torn labrums in both of his hips and that will end his WHL career.
The 20-year-old goalie appeared in 141 WHL games and finishes with an 87-29-8-3 record. He backstopped the Rockets to the WHL Championship last season and one goal away from a Memorial Cup title as well.
Kelowna will continue to lean on Michael Herringer for the remainder of the season and playoffs. Herringer is 23-9-1-0 this season with a goals-against of 3.17 and a .901 save percentage.
The Rockets are in a dogfight with Victoria but do have two games in hand with the now first place Royals. Can they get back in front?
U.S. Division race gets tighter
The Seattle Thunderbirds have been looking up at the Everett Silvertips since the second half of the season began. The main reason Everett passed them is that the Silvertips held a 6-0-1-0 record head-to-head with their I-5 rivals.
Seattle finally picked up a regulation win this past Saturday, beating Everett 2-0 behind two goals from New York Islanders prospect Mathew Barzal. That win moved the Thunderbirds to within three points of Everett. The two teams have two more head-to-head match ups and Seattle is hot, having won four in a row and eight of the last nine. This one could come down to the final weekend.
Whacky Wednesday in the Dub
There was something in the air this past Wednesday as the league schedule featured two entertaining games that would both fall under the ‘nutty’ category.
In Lethbridge, the Regina Pats beat the Hurricanes in a 9-8 shootout. The two clubs combined for 102 shots, ten different goal scores and two hat tricks. Colton Kroeker completed his hat trick for the Hurricanes late in the third and it looked like they would go on to win 8-7. However, Regina’s Lane Zablocki notched his third of the game with under three minutes to go to force overtime. In a game with this much scoring there was none in the overtime and then it took seven shooters to finish it and give the Pats the win.
At the same time in Everett, the home standing Silvertips found themselves down 5-1 against the Kelowna Rockets. The Rockets managed to chase Carter Hart from the game and were outshooting Everett 25-13. The Silvertips stormed back however and found the net four times on their first seven shots of the third period to tie the game. The tying goal was a short-handed marker and came off the stick of Connor Dewar who was lying on the ice and had slid past the Rockets net. He managed to get his blade on it and knock it home. The excitement of the come back was doused a bit when Justin Kirkland would win it for the visitors in overtime.
Just another Wednesday night in the Dub.