Round 1, Pats and Brandon

What do you guys think are the keys are to win this series?

If I were to start, Id say applying pressure on their defence and peppering the young goalie. Pulock and Roy are going to log most of the minutes and they cant have any easy shifts. Roy in particular I can see shying away if he gets hit everytime he touches the puck.

Though at the same time we have to stay out of the box. Although we havnt been good at that, esp against Brandon, I can trust Cameron will have done some detail work on containing the Brandon powerplay when its needed.

Getting our defence and Wapple back is a good first sign before things get going. Stevenson too. It would be tremendous if Steel can become a sort of Point from MJ for us in this series while Stephenson and Klimchuk are being watched.

To me this is going to be the series to watch in the first round. One teams weakness seems to be the other teams strength.

1. Pats subpar PK against the Wheat King's good PP
2. Wheat Kings subpar 5 on 5 play against the Pats good 5 on 5.

I think the keys for Regina to win are:
- the play of MacAuley (I think that Wapple is at least another 7 - 10 days away)
- the play of the black and blue brothers (3rd line). D'Amico, Christoffer and Carter have to do what they do. Bang. Make things hard on the Brandon D. If they can outplay the Brandon 3rd line, then I think the Pats will win.
- the Pats PK has to be better.

All I have to say is that if the Pats play THEIR 60min game with some bodies back, I dont think Brandon has much chance. I say that because if the Pats are playing their game, most teams have loads of trouble even getting possesion. Thats how the Pats are able to play the elite teams the way they have. If they can stay out of the box too, that would be super.

Thing about Steel so far, is that he has gotten limited time playing with the top players, which is where he will find success at his age and with his set of skills. Being out there with Wagner and Kammerer all the time, you're not going to do a whole lot. If he could get some time with better players or on the PP, im pretty sure he would become more of a factor. He not getting much confidence playing with inexperienced players who havent done too much this season. Wagner has improved butt loads, but still not the same.

The Pats defense is going to have to keep Peter Quennville in tact, he has had success against us all year long especially this final weekend. A lot can be said about a great PP with Brandon has, as stated above we need to stay out of the box something that has been a problem all year long although those total number of penalty minutes are abit inflated due to the Pats having 75+ fighting majors (I will get the exact numbers when I get back on my laptop instead of on my phone).

I have some confidence in MacAuley if he has to play a few games in this series, let's be fair to him here this weekend our defense was patched together infront of him. He did play a very solid game on Friday night I can't blame 1 of those goals on MacAuley he has for the most part elimitated that 1 or 2 bad goal a game which could of easily resulted in us having at least 5 more wins this year if not a few more.

Playoffs is the time we see which players are able to up their game & which guys are just castoffs. I really hope Wagner gets a fair shot I truly feel he can be a difference maker in just the way he plays & competes. He loves to skate hard & hit everything he could make it real tough on some of the Brandon defensemen. We are a bigger team then Brandon is upfront which may benefit our defense, Brandon has the edge with bigger defensemen though but no one who is truly tough to play against. Roy, Pulock & Pilon are all pretty soft type defensemen, imo Pulock has tons of skill but needs to get abit meaner to really be effective at the next level.

Last but not least Christoffer could be a very key player in either the Pats success or non success. He needs to just play hard & not hurt the team with some bad penalties that he has been taking the last couple of weeks. He plays the junk yard dog style & can get under a players skin easily, he reminds me a lot of Tanner Eberle in MJ both are known to be effective players but also known to hurt their team as well with bad/needless penalties.

The PK numbers here... 1st off I will say I know in mid feb we were around the 6th for the most times short handed but not anymore lol

LETH 341
REG 333
SEA 333
EDM 333
POR 332
SPO 330

No one talks about EDM POR or SPO taking so many penalties mainly due to them being able to kill them off. Also Brandon isn't a good PK team either only 1.6% difference from us to them were 3rd last they are 5th last.

We finished 2nd in most penalty minutes in the league as well but in those minutes are exactly 75 fighting majors 4th most in the WHL behind only LETH SEA MJ

If we were half decent at killing penalties this wouldn't be a big concern the thing is I think we look for the offensive chance too much when short handed which hampers our ability to actually kill off a penalty. We finished tied for 1st with most short handed goals with 17 along with Portland.

Posted this on the Bdn site, if you're interested at all, it would be interesting to see the same for your line combos and def pairings

Just a few average numbers per line for the team if line combos stay the same, goals, +/-, PIM per line per game

McGauley/Nejezchleb/P Quenneville 1.2gpg -0.5 1.8pim/g
Gabrielle/ J Quenneville/ Hawryluk 1.1 gpg +0.3 3.2pim/g
Bukarts/Robinson/Meullier 0.7gpg -/+0 1.4pim/g
Coulter/Lisoway/Lindgren 0.4gpg -0.4 0.9pim/g
Pulock/Pilon 0.5gpg -0.2 0.7pim/g
Roy/Hunter 0.2gpg -0.1 1.9pim/g
Waltz/Green 0gpg -0.1 1.7pim/g

More ststs for what they are worth
Looked at both teams record agains the playoff teams only but included both Red Deer and PA. Brandon 15 wins and 35 losses G/F 165 and G/A 210 Regina Pats 20 wins and 30 losses, G/F 149 and G/A 199

Those same stats from Christmas are Brandon 7 wins 18 losses G/F 77 and G/A 95 Regina 12 wins and 13 losses G/F 74 and G/A 94

It all will be water under the bridge by April 1st

Just so no one misses I just read on Phii's blog they want every one to wear red to both week end games.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RWAH

More ststs for what they are worth
Looked at both teams record agains the playoff teams only but included both Red Deer and PA. Brandon 15 wins and 35 losses G/F 165 and G/A 210 Regina Pats 20 wins and 30 losses, G/F 149 and G/A 199

Those same stats from Christmas are Brandon 7 wins 18 losses G/F 77 and G/A 95 Regina 12 wins and 13 losses G/F 74 and G/A 94

It all will be water under the bridge by April 1st

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Bdn clearly did well against weak teams, went 8 and 0 vs the Warriors! Struggled with above 500 teams

Everyone will be back but wapple he is still a week away hopefully he'll be back late in the series. I have the pats winning in 6 games just a little deeper up front and we should have 6 solid dmen back.