Blades playoffs

[lordstanley]

(5) Saskatoon Blades vs the (4) Medicine Hat Tigers

Here you have it what do you guys think ?

Lets keep the whole playoff thread here i will have a prediction tomorrow when i look at things a bit closer

[JMoney1988]

Well, hopefully regular season success can translate into playoff success....., well at least we get to see cocky (hunter ****rocks) again.........

[lordstanley]

Well, hopefully regular season success can translate into playoff success....., well at least we get to see cocky (hunter ****rocks) again.........

Haha yeah it is gonna be a great series we are gonna need the sutter burns and paradis line to do there job for sure

[JMoney1988]

Season Stats
I just thought I would look at the season stats overall between the two....

Offense
253/674=37%-Top line (Etem, Shinkaruk, and I assuming Valk)
181/730=25%-Top line (Nicholls, Stransky, Olsen(also switching players around/injuries)) We scored 56 more goals than they did.......

Goals For
255-Medicine Hat-both offense's are pretty even
268-Saskatoon-both offense's are pretty even

Goaltenders
Tyler Bunz-39-17-2-3 (Had a great year for the Tigers)
Andrey Marakov-29-21-1-1 (Had a good year, but fatigue set in and affected his numbers)

Defense(Points)
Medicine Hat-175
Saskatoon-191 (this might a key come playoff thing, they accounted for 26% of the offense)

Season Ending Records
Medicine Hat-42-24-2-4 for 90 points
Saskatoon-40-29-1-2 for 83 points

Blades won season series 3-1

[Billy Blade]

I don't really buy the fatigue factor on Makarov, Bunz played 61 games this year for the Tigers and he was fine. I think Andrey was such an unknown coming in that he caught everyone by surprise. As the season wore on, other teams started to figure him out, watch film, and see how he can be beaten. The purpose of this isn't to bust on Andrey, because I do believe he's a solid goaltender who can carry the load, it's just that he is beatable and the defense will need to be solid in front of him to be successful.

With that said, I also believe that the Blades are a deeper team than the Tigers, and hopefully they will be able to shut down the Hat's one big line, which often happens in the playoffs to teams like the Tigers. If they are successful in doing so, I think the Blades can move on in six games. We shall see!

[curwie]

I don't really buy the fatigue factor on Makarov, Bunz played 61 games this year for the Tigers and he was fine. I think Andrey was such an unknown coming in that he caught everyone by surprise. As the season wore on, other teams started to figure him out, watch film, and see how he can be beaten. The purpose of this isn't to bust on Andrey, because I do believe he's a solid goaltender who can carry the load, it's just that he is beatable and the defense will need to be solid in front of him to be successful.

With that said, I also believe that the Blades are a deeper team than the Tigers, and hopefully they will be able to shut down the Hat's one big line, which often happens in the playoffs to teams like the Tigers. If they are successful in doing so, I think the Blades can move on in six games. We shall see!

Bang on! I don't buy that fatigue talk either. I think he's gonna be huge in the clutch though. He's already proven to be a big game player with 58 saves in the gold medal game for Russia. Let's hope that's a trend with him!