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Playoff Previews - "B" Division
(3) Wolverines @ (2) Black Aces
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Wolverines: 11-6-1 (.639), 71 GF, 52 GA, +19 Dif.
Black
Aces: 12-6-0 (.667), 75 GF, 56 GA, +19 Dif. |
Wolverines
Top 5 Scorers |
Black Aces
Top 5 Scorers |
Andy Hundhal 14-14-13-27
Dogar Gill 18-7-14-21
Hashmat Mohammad 14-8-10-18
Ryan Finley 12-10-6-16
Rashid Wahed 16-2-14-16 |
Kevin Irwin 14-8-11-19
Jeremy Skinner 16-8-8-16
Corey Albino 17-7-7-14
Paul Bennett 17-5-9-14
Chris Allegretto 12-7-6-13 |
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| As with the entire "B" division this year,
there wasn't much separating these two teams. With the 18 game season
in the books the Wolverines and Black Aces find themselves within a
single point of each other with an identical goal differential of +19.
The Wolverines took the season series 2-1 but the Black Aces won the
most recent of those games by a goal which in the end was the deciding
factor in their playoff seeding. This series features another
outstanding goaltending match-up and an interesting dichotomy of
offensive styles. |
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Both of these teams are middle of the pack scorers
that would rather win a defensive struggle than a shootout. The
Wolverines have an entirely different sort of attack than do the Black
Aces, featuring a couple of top end stickhandlers that they let loose
to work their one-on-one magic on opposition defenders. Andy Hundhal
had a breakout campaign in his sophomore season, and looked like an
entirely different player than in his rookie season with the Warhawks
last spring. His 27 points in 14 games was good for fifth in scoring
and should earn him serious MVP consideration. Hashmat Mohammad is
still one of the toughest players in the league to dislodge from the
ball and a seriously dangerous player if there is only a single defender
between him and the net. His achilles heal remain his inability to use
his teammates by moving the ball at the proper time. The rest of the
Wolverines forwards have no such issue as the team in general is one
of the best passing teams around. Players such as Rashid Wahed, Ryan
Finley, and Dogar Gill are constantly employing a tic-tac-toe
mentality and making the ball do the work. Dogar also was a top scorer
this year as he was last season for the Wolverines as well. His quick
release is very effective but like Rashid, he often prefers the
pass. Look for power forward Ryan Finley to go hard to the net to
score some goals.
The Black Aces play a completely different style on offense, often
depending on three lines to grind things out. They don't have the big
name talent up front but rather a group of extremely effective
forwards, each able to both score and check. The team scoring lead was
up for grabs most of the season with Kevin Irwin grabbing the title in
the end with 19 points in 14 games. He is one of the fastest players
in the league and just loves to take off and circle the entire floor
when he gets the ball on his blade. The team's former goaltending
hero, Corey Albino, has made a successful move to forward and finished
with a decent total of 17-7-7-14, good for third place on the team.
One of the team's great offensive weapons is defensemen Jeremy Skinner
who loves to jump into the rush and has a great shot release that he
can get off while in motion. He recorded 16 points in as many
games finishing behind only Andrew Jamison and Chuck Emery in the
defensemen scoring race. Paul Bennett has struggled to some degree
since his 14 goal season in 08/09 season. He scored only 5 this season
and 3 during the Spring, but this may be due to the fact that the team
has so much more offensive depth than last year when he was their
clear go-to-guy. He still remain a threat however, and the Wolverines
will have to be aware of him. There are a host of players at the point
a game plateau including Chris Allegreto, Jagpreet Ghuman and Bal
Parmar. Dennis Grewal, most notably connected with great defensive
work, also put up some good numbers in limited action
(7-4-7-11). Edge: None |
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These teams finished one and two in the goals against
department by a fairly wide margin over the rest of the field so they
can clearly play defense. The Wolverines team GAA of 2.89 was behind
only the Thrashers in the entire league. Harminder Rai is the team's
top rearguard and he is effective at both ends. He has a great ability
to clear the ball away from the danger areas to ease pressure even if
it means firing it out of play. Terry Wong brings loads of experience
and is a fierce competitor, rarely losing the corner battles. The Wolverines
will have a bit of a hurdle to climb, however, as late season addition
Zach Kelm was unable to qualify for playoffs. He had been giving them
excellent minutes on the back end in the few games he did play and
should be an effective player for them next season. The team will have
to play a forward on defense but then again they have been doing that
all year anyway.
The Black Aces defense corps is lead by Trent Nellis. He is
certainly one of the most feared defenders in the league and unmatched
in the department of strength and crease clearing ability. He does
need to know where to draw the line and his 52 penalty minutes are far
two many. Fortunately the Black Aces featured a league best penalty
kill rate of 89% to go with their lead in being shorthanded the most
times. The rest of the defensive group is rather unsung, but players
like Steve Aspiri, Bob Kidd, and Bal Parmar are solid in their own
end. This team seems so hard to score on year in and year out and definitely
feature too many good defensive forwards to name, but Dennis Grewal,
and Jagpreet Ghuman stand out as particularly good. Edge: None |
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Many people have been looking forward to this
match-up between the pipes. It is a contest not just between two great
goalies, but two of the younger, up-and-comers in the NWBHL in the
form of Gurn Sumal and Cristian Campeanu. Gurn is in his third season
with the league and sports an above .500 winning percentage despite
playing in front of a fairly young team. His goals-against of 3.00 and
save percentage of .873 rank him second in both categories behind the
man he will be facing at the other end. Gurn had many Wolverines
worried a few weeks ago when he missed some time with a knee injury
only to come back and aggravate his wrist. It didn't seem to slow him
down any, as he was exceptional in his return, giving up only 5 goals
in 3 games (Including an emergency start in "A").
Rookie Cristian Campeanu has turned a lot of heads this season and
even been mentioned as one of the favorites to take the "B"
division's MVP award. His numbers are truly extraordinary; first in
GAA (2.73), first in save % (.890), first in wins (10), and the top
goaltender in the 3-stars ranking, finishing behind only Meemo Dik and
Trent Plul for the overall title. Both Cristian and Gurn take
up a lot of net and play a strong positional game rather than relying
on pure reflexes. Against any other "B" goalie at the
moment, I would give Cristian the edge but Gurn seems more than ready
to go toe-to-toe in this series. Edge: None
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| The tightness of this series cannot be understated. These
two teams are equal in so many different categories that it really
boggles the mind. The only thing I can guarantee is that this will be
a low scoring series that will go to three games. There may even be
some overtime involved. I will let you pick the winner of this series
for yourself because I certainly can't. Edge: None
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