First Round Playoff Preview...

CCHL Playoff Preview:  Round 1 Dick “Dirty Mitts” Puxindeep

The regular season in the CCHL has come and gone, and with apologies to the Christmas season, the most wonderful time of year is upon us!  I’m talking CCHL playoff hockey baby!  We all want to know what’s going to happen and unfortunately since I couldn’t get TSN’s Maggie the Monkey to tell us (apparently she’s retired from hockey prognosticating), I’ll do my best to give you an idea of what to expect.

We’ll start in the Canosa Conference where the defending champions find themselves in an unexpected first round appearance.

Long Island (41-33-8) vs. Minnesota (53-24-5)

It’s hard to imagine Minnesota would have finished with over 50 wins having dealt Carter and Parise, but this team still had enough offensive ability to score 330 goals, good for third in the league.
While Minnesota scored a whopping 67 more goals than the Long Island Express, defensively they are relatively close with Minnesota only seven goals better on the defensive side of the puck.  This Norseman team likes to deploy the offense, so Long Island will need to avoid getting into a run and gun type of series with the Norsemen.

Voracek and Kessel both did more than anyone thought possible of them this season, and posted career high numbers in the CCHL.  Voracek’s 94 points and 131 penalty minutes made him the big power forward many expected him to be when he was drafted.  Justin Faulk has been outstanding as well, chipping in 76 points and was second on the team in plus minus.

Robert Luongo has a bit of a bounce back season for Minnesota, but his .913 save percentage must be better in this series if he is going to take on Henrik Lundqvist and out play him in goal.  Lundqvist had a rather pedestrian .915 save percentage this season, by his standards at least, but will be a significant factor in determining what happens in this series.  It is quite possible that he could win this series by himself for Long Island if he gets hot and turns into a wall in front of the Express net.
The big challenge for Long Island in this series will be whether or not they can score enough to get past the Norsemen.  Aside from the big Tavares, Landeskog and Callahan line, the scoring drops off dramatically from there.  Tavares set a career high in points this season with 99, and led the team in goals.  Although Tavares led the Express into round two last season, he is still relatively unproven and critics will still question his ability to elevate his game unless Long Island have a long playoff run.

This should be an interesting series but at the end of the day, I just don’t see Long Island having enough offense to get past Minnesota.  King Henrik will play good but he can’t score the goals.

Prediction:  Minnesota in 5 games.  

Victoria (46-25-11) vs. Copenhagen (52-23-7)

This could a wild series.  Victoria and Copenhagen could be the best fourth and fifth seeds we’ll ever see a series; both could easily have been teams that receive a first round bye most years.  This year however is not most years; and they will meet in a battle of really good teams in the first round.
Victoria is one of the best road teams in the league (25-12-4) so being on the road to start, likely won’t both the Ronin a whole lot.

Sidney Crosby, Jamie Benn, Rick Nash and Wayne Simmonds all light it up offensively for Victoria this season.  Crosby was fifth in league scoring while both Simmonds and Nash dented the twine forty plus times for GM Paul Canosa’s team. Victoria is also solid defensively with Myers, Suter and Hamonic eating up the majority of the minutes for the Ronin.  This group is pretty underrated defensively, as they surrendered fewer goals against than Copenhagen despite the star studded group the Crusaders boast.

It’s hard to believe a group with Weber, Keith, Seabrook, Bouwmeester and Hedman would be tied for sixth best in goals against, however goaltender Semyon Varlamov had a save percentage of just .912 this season. Copenhagen are still solid up front, with a veteran forward group that was bolstered by the additions of Datsyuk and Parise in mid-season trades.  This is a group that already had Kopitar, Stamkos, Getzlaf and Iginla – a group of winners.

The key to the series in my eyes is the special team’s battle that could take place.  Copenhagen was third best on the powerplay this season at 23.3%, while Victoria struggled all season on the penalty kill finishing 14th in the league in that category.  At 81.5% on the penalty kill, Victoria were allowing one goal against every five penalties given to them, and that could make this a very tough series to win against the defending champs.

I’m going to say that’s the biggest factor in this series, and along with the playoff experiences of the champion Crusaders, I’ll take them to win this series.  It’ll be a tough series, but I think Copenhagen will be just a little bit too much for the Ronin this season.

Prediction:  Copenhagen in 6 games.  

Now we’ll move over to the Corfield Conference and look at the first round series’ in that group.

Seattle (43-35-4) vs. Niagara (48-24-10)

This is an interesting series and one that sees the physical Niagara club take on team based on smarts and skill in Seattle.

Niagara is a team built for the playoffs.  They are good defensively and have one of the game’s best leaders in Jonathan Toews up front.  They also have players like Hossa, Backes, Couture and leading scorer Nick Foligno who are all very physical players that are defensively responsible.  When you add in Dustin Byfuglien and Drew Doughty on the back end, this is a team that nobody wants to face in the playoffs given how physical they are as a group. Pekka Rinne is the man between the pipes for Niagara, with an impressive .917 save percentage this season for the Thunder. Rinne is a giant of a man in net, and could easily win this series along for Niagara if he were to get hot as well.

On the other side of the coin, Seattle are a disciplined team and do not take a lot of penalties.  This discipline will be put to the test in this series, as the Reign must skate away and not retaliate against the Thunder who like to mix it up physically at all points in the game. Malkin and Bergeron will be put to the test in this series, as Niagara will likely use the last change to get Toews out as much as possible against Malkin. The secondary scoring of Seattle will need to rise to the occasion, with 30 goal scorers Zucker and Abdelkader looking to transition that regular season success into playoff success.  Both players are still relatively young, so it remains to be seen if they can duplicate that success when the hockey becomes defensively tighter.

Corey Crawford will draw the starting assignment for Seattle in this series, despite not really having a great regular season by his standards.  His 2.97goals against average and .909 save percentage are not numbers that he would be proud of, so look for Crawford to try to elevate his game in this series.
At the end of the day, Niagara will be too physically demanding to play against for the smaller Reign team.  As a result, I would expect Niagara to take this series despite spending a lot of time in the penalty box.

Prediction:  Niagara in 6 games

Winnipeg (42-32-8) vs. Fort Erie (43-32-7) 

There isn’t much separating these teams in the standings, but they are two teams headed in very opposite directions to start the second season.

Winnipeg enter this series having won four of their past ten games, while the Falcons from Fort Erie are flying high having won eight out of ten, and six in a row to end the season. The season seemed to change for the better for the Falcons after acquiring Jeff Carter from the Minnesota Norsemen, with Carter bringing some big game scoring to the Falcons; a presence they lacked all season long up until that deal.

Fort Erie also boasts Turris and near senior citizen Jaromir Jagr, who both joined Carter in scoring over 80 points. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins appears to have taken a giant step forward this season as well, scoring over 70 points while being a plus 12.

A mid-season move by GM Matt Young also saw Dougie Hamilton added to the defensive group, and Hamilton helped the powerplay immediately upon his arrival.  His 60 points ranks him seventh in scoring amongst defensemen as well, and was a +30 for Fort Erie after his arrival from Boston.
Winnipeg are led by a solid top four forward group of Steen, Ladd, Wheeler and Mark Stone.  All of these players posted at least 70 points on the campaign, while Spurgeon led the defense with 46 points. Ladd and Wheeler both had 100 penalty minutes this season, and Winnipeg will need them to stay out of the box if they are going to advance beyond this series.  Both players are too important to have on the ice, and with them in the box, it would give Fort Erie’s much improved powerplay a chance to work against the league’s ninth best penalty kill. That could be a turning point in the series, so it will be interesting to see if Ladd and Wheeler can stay on the ice and out of the box.

In evaluating the goaltending in this series, Fort Erie appears to have the edge provided Craig Anderson stays healthy.  Anderson could be the most unheralded goaltender in the CCHL this season, with his 2.23 GAA and .926 save percentage.  Many wonder just how good Fort Erie would have been without him in their net this season. Winnipeg will likely lean on Hutchinson for the majority of this series, with his .911 save percentage and half a goal per game against better than Pavelec.
At the end of the day, this series could come down to who has home ice advantage and the last change.  With similar records at home and on the road, there isn’t much difference between these teams.  While both teams having winning road records, there is a big difference between how effective they are on the road and at home. Winnipeg is only being three games over .500 on the road, while Fort Erie are a mere four games over .500 on the road.  If there is something that could determine the series, it’s just that so I have to take the team with home ice advantage

Prediction:  Fort Erie in 7 games.

There you have it folks, my first round predictions are complete.  Hope you enjoy the first round and I’ll be back with my round two predictions as soon as the match-ups are determined.


About the author:
Dick “Dirty Mitts” Puxindeep has been a CCHL columnist since December of 2015.  When he’s not watching hockey or eating chicken wings, he can be found at local karaoke competitions performing his world famous rendition of ‘Baby Got Back’.  Dick knows what he knows and won’t stray from that.  Enjoy reading Dick’s semi-regular column here when he posts it.