It's Sunday and you know what that means? It's another blog from yours truly, the crown prince of the hockey ramble, the CCHL Commissioner is back putting pen to paper with some thoughts.
That really was quite the opening round of the playoffs. This is the first year we did the expanded playoffs with seeds seven and eight but all the concerns about those teams being competitive in a playoff environment were definitely proven wrong.
It was exciting and for the top two teams, far more exciting than playing 82 games to get into the dance only to wait a week because you have a bye.
Parry Sound gave Fort Erie all they can handle it the series really came down to depth as the Orrsmen had players like MacKinnon, Rask and more playing quite fatigued as the series concluded. They can play but their impact will be minimized when playing at less than 99/100 fatigue and I think that really became the difference.
Portland was able to pull off the upset of Wisborg as well in a thrilling seventh game. Portland is really riding their top line to success thus far in the playoffs but at some point, some of the others will have to step up if Portland wants to continue their impressive post-season run.
In the Canosa Conference, Sudbury found themselves down two games to open the playoffs only to roar back with four straight wins to send the hot Millers home in the first round.
Springfield and Las Vegas were expected to be very competitive but in the end, the team with the better goaltending came out on top in the series.
It's been a pretty fun opening round and we are in for some tremendous series in the second round as well.
Switching gears, as many of you know I'm in a league with 31 teams using the Simon T simulator and that league uses coaches.
We have held off on using coaches in the CCHL for some time while everyone gets used to the sim, but I'm wondering if it might be time to add coaches into the mix for us.
The reasons are simple in a lot of ways. Who doesn't want to fire a coach when their team becomes a dumpster fire (see; Sabres, Buffalo)? The other reason is with a coach at the helm, they can actually impact the way your team is built based on roster construction.
It could be fun to see the effect John Tortarella or Jon Cooper could have on your team's play on the ice. Or how about the Mike Babcock redemption tour in the CCHL? Would be interesting to hear thoughts on coaches because they can enhance your play on the ice based on using a coach designed to help your roster construction.
In any event, that's all for this week. Enjoy round two of the playoffs.
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