CFFL Playoffs round 2

 Well it looks like the Cherry Cup will once again have a Cherry name on it.  Will the Assassins get their name on the cup for a second time, or will the California Raisins win their first Cherry Cup?

The Raisins got there outlasting the defending champs Who Gives a Puck winning 4-2-1.  All the Raisins really needed was one more hit and 2 assists and they would have won with the games wrapping up.  Getting 6 hits on Sunday for the Raisins helped but the true story of this match up was the goal tending.  Goal tending had been the Puck's nemesis all season long but they were no match for the Raisins netminders.  They Raisins ended up with 5 wins with a SV% of .899.  Oettinger had 3 wins while Vejmelka had 2.  While the Raisins had trouble finding the back of the net, they were able to get 5 assists from Juraj Slafkovsky (say that name 3x fast).

No Draisaitl? No problem.  The Assassins just keep rolling on, defeating the Space Monkey Mafia 5-1-1. Nick Suzuki filled in just fine scoring 2 goals and getting 4 assists for the Assassins.  Leading the scoring was Jason Robertson who had 4 goals and Mark Stone who had 3.  It was a close one in net as both teams tallied 4 wins each.  But the big edge in SV% went to the Assassins as Logan Thompson and Scott Wedgewood combined for a .948 SV%.  

2026 Cherry Cup Finals:  California Raisins at Alex's Assassins

I am not sure the Assassins can be stopped.  Even without Draisaitl.  It's going to be a short week as last day for games is Thursday April 16.  Plus some teams might rest players and some teams might only have a game left.  Its going to be an intense 4 days!  

Overall, these teams are pretty evenly matched.  They are 1 and 2 in the league with blocks.  Both are close in assists and the Assassins probably drop a notch without Draisaitl.  Raisins do play a heavier game as they were 2nd in hits this season compared to Assassins rank of 7.  

Its hard to rule out a team that have Celebrini and Crosby on it for the Raisins.  Will Cuylle and Tom Wilson will start to keep pounding the Assassins on the boards.  As long as Suzuki and Robertson keep playing as well as they have, the Assassins will be tough to beat.

In net it's pretty close too.  Both were top in the league in goalie wins.  Oettinger has been a stud but so has Logan Thompson and Wedgwood.  I may give a slight advantage to the Assassins.

In the end it just seems like the Assassins are a team of destiny as they have steam rolled the entire league all season long.  It should be close and a key will be the remaining schedule, who's playing, and will the owners adjust accordingly?  Assassins 4-2-1

CFHL Playoffs Round 1

 The CFHL playoffs have begun.  The first round saw one stinker of a game and one that came down to a final power play assist!  Crazy!

First the Stinker.  The California Raisins almost completely swept all categories against the Krampus Carols, winning 6-1.  I mean hits and blocks were ridiculous.  Raisins had 50 hits compared to 11 by the Krampus, and that was with Cuylle on the bench with 17 more hits!  Raisins had 40 blocks compared to 18 by the Krampus.  Celebrini had 5 goals for the Raisins while Sid "The Kid" Crosby had 7 assists, 3 PPP, 5 hits and 5 blocks!  

The Raisins now move on and face the defending champion Who Gives a Puck.  The Puck bring the Golden Goal scorer Jack Hughes and his 47 assists on the year.  They also have two skaters with 40 plus goals, Wyatt Johnston and Kirill Kaprizov.  And I don't think it will be that lopsided in hits and blocks for the Raisins this time.  The Puck have multiple players with 100 or more hits and 100 or more blocks.

This game will be close and I see the Raisins eeking out a win, preventing a repeat by the Puck.

The Space Monkey Mafia got past the Slapshots on a final shot.  This game was a tight one, with the game 3-3-1 going into Sunday night.  Unfortunately for the Slapshots, their Sabers players that really got them into the playoffs, let them down once they got there.  Josh Norris had no goals.  Tage Thomplson only had 1 goal and 1 assist and 1 PPP.  Goalie Alex Lyon had a SV% of .400!! Ouch!  But despite all that, they were still in the driver seat since they were the home team. But J.T. Miller put the dagger in the Slapshots heart with a power play assist tying PPP and winning the game for the Space Monkey Mafia 3-2-2!

What does the Space Monkey get for it's efforts?  A date with the top seed and juggernaut Assassins.  However the biggest news over the past few weeks was their loss of team MVP Leon Draisaitl.  He will be tough to replace, however Nick Suzuki can fill in as a leader in the face off circle as he has 68 assists on the season.  They have a solid blue line with 3 d-men with more than 100 blocks on the season.  

Another close ones sees the Assassins continuing their dominance on the league.  

CFHL Playoffs

 

The playoffs are upon us and the defending champs have a chance to defend their title!  They made a late season charge after a slow start to over take the Slapshots and Space Monkeys for first place in the Smythe Division and thus they get a bye in the first round of the playoffs.  Could they get their name on the trophy yet again?

The other bye and number 1 seed of course is the Assassins.  They pretty much steamed rolled the entire league all season long.  However just at the final weeks of the season they lost Leon Draisaitl for the season.  He led the team with 62 assists and 42 PPP not to mention 35 goals!  He will be tough to replace so it might not be that easy for the Assassins going forward.

So what does that leave?  That leaves 4 more teams that face off this week in the first round of the playoffs.  

Krampus Carols at California Raisins - The favorite here has to be the Raisins.  With Sid "The Kid" back and young phenom Macklin Celebrini they are pretty powerful upfront.  Tom Wilson can smash the boards too with 169 hits on the season.  And between Oettinger and Vejmelka they have a combined 63 wins.  The Krampus Carols do have some players too.  Nikita Kucherov can win a game all on his own.  However, the team lacks brutes on the boards and will likely lose both hits and blocks.  Vasilevskiy will need to win goalies on his own as well.  

Game is currently 4-2-1 in favor of Raisins as they have huge leads in Hits and Blocks and Celebrini already has 2 goals and 2 PPP so far this week.

Space Monkey Mafia at Buffalo Slapshots - Sabre games will be huge in this matchup.  Space Monkey have Alex Tuch and goalie Luukkonen while the Slapshots, to no one's surprise, have Josh Norris, Tage Thompson and Alex Lyon.  Lyon was on fire winning 6 in a row before giving up two in a row in a slight regression.  He will need to get back to that winning form.  This game will be close, and could be determined on who gets the puck in Buffalo.  However, Slapshots' secret weapon could be Cole Caufield who has 47 goals, 34 assists and 26 PPP on the season.

Currently the Slapshots have a 5-2 lead winning almost every category except blocks and goalie wins.  But it is a long way to go...

CFHL Week 13

 Only one more week to go in the regular season.  The Slapshots have now moved into first place in the Smythe Division thanks to the Space  Monkey's losing 6-1 to the Raisins!  The Checkers are 4 points back of the last playoff spot held by the Krampus.  It would take a major swing between the two teams for the Checkers to sneak into the playoffs.  

If playoffs started today,  Assassins and Slapshots would get the first round byes.  Raisins would take on Krampus Carols while defending champ Who Gives a Puck would face Space Monkey.  Some of these seeds could change (except for the Assassins of course).

Week 13:

Slapshots vs. Goon Crew 4-2-1

The Crew's offensive woes continued, but this game was closer than the score indicated.  Crew were only down 2 assists and 1 PPP to the Slapshots.  Beat them by only 1 hit and lost Blocks by only 3.  Both had 3 goalie wins and the SV% difference was .002!  The Slapshots did have two players with 4 goals each in the game, Caufield and Forsberg. Pastrnak had a huge week in the loss going 4-3-2-6-2.

Krampus Carols vs. Assassins 4-3

Rare loss this week for the Assassins as the Carols continued to hang on to their playoff spot.  The Assassins were dealt a big blow however with the injury to Draisaitl.  He will miss the remainder of the season.   Could this be the chink in the Assassins' armor?  Kucherov was amazing for the Krampus scoring 6 goals and 7 assists!

Raisins vs. Space Monkey 6-1

This loss cost the Space Monkey first place in the Smythe Division and if the Raisins weren't in the Cherry Division they would be comfortably be in first.  Blue liner Erik Karlsson of the Raisins scored 5 times and added 3 helpers in the win!  The Raisins also combined for 64 hits with two players in double digits (Cuylle and Wilson).

Who Gives a Puck vs Greek Empire 4-3

The Puck were able to dominate most skater categories despite losing goals by only scoring 7.  The Greek Empire were no match for the Puck in Hits and Blocks losing 40-16 in hits and 31-19 in blocks.  Puck had two guys with 7 blocks each and Trocheck had 14 hits in the win!

Checkers vs. White Mambas 5-1-1

The Checkers trying to make one final push here late in the season to make the playoffs.  Winning 5-1-1 certainly helped and another week like this and a bad loss by Krampus and the Checkers could sneak into the playoffs.  They had 64 hits this week too, including 15 from Darnell Nurse and 20 from Laferriere!

Three Stars of the Week:

Number 1 Star:  Nikita Kucherov, F, Krampus - 6 goals, 7 assists, 2 PPP, 2 hits, 1 block

Number 2 Star:  Filip Forsberg, F, Slapshots - 4 goals, 5 assists, 2 PPP, 6 hits, 3 blocks

Number 3 Star:  Cole Caufield, F, Slapshots - 4 goals, 4 assists, 4 PPP, 3 hits, 1 block

Netminder of the Week:  Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Space Monkey - 2 wins .982 SV%

Goon of the Week:  Alex Laferriere, F, Checkers - 20 hits

Blockhead of the Week:  Thomas Harley, D, White Mambas - 14 blocks

CFHL Update Week 12

 Well it's looking pretty bleak for the bottom 4 to try to sneak into the playoffs.  Goon Crew had a bad week against the Raisins and now 3 points out of a playoff spot.  Empire is 5 points out, Checkers 7 and the White Mambas are 9 points out with only 2 weeks to go.

Last week's action...

California Raisins vs. Goon Crew 4-2-1 - Raisins had a pretty easy week defeating the Crew.  They were led by the 3 goalie wins by Jake Oettinger.  Matt Boldy and Celebrini both had 3 goals in the win as the Raisins look like a lock for the playoffs.

Assassins vs. Greek Empire 5-0-2 - I am not sure if there is a team that is going to be able to stop this freight train called the Assassins!  In another dominating performance, they got 4 goals from Batherson, 4 assists from Draisaitl, and 12 blocks from Brandt Clarke.  

Krampus Carols vs. Slapshots 4-3 - The Krampus improved their chances of a trip to the playoffs with this win.  Panarin was the teams number 1 star getting 2 goals, 4 helpers, 2 PPP 2 hits and a blocked shot.  If they could have got anything from their goalies, this could have been worse.

Space Monkey Mafia vs. Checkers 4-3 - Checker's playoff window starting to close.  They had a big fat ZERO for PPP!.  Dylan Guenthere had 4 goals, 5 hits and 3 blocks for the Space Monkey.

Who Gives a Puck vs. White Mambas 3-3-1 - It looks like the defending champ Puck will have a shot to defend their title sitting in 4th overall in the standings.  Cozens had 14 hits and they had 10 blocks from Thomas Chabot.  Pavel Dorofeyev led the team in goals with 4.

Three Stars of the Week:

Number 1 Star:  Macklin Celebrini, C, Raisins  - 3 goals, 3 assists, 1 PPP, 4 hits, 5 blocks

Number 2 Star:  Connor McDavid, C, Empire - 2 goals, 4 assist, 3 PPP, 3 hits

Number 3 Star:  Artemi Panarin, F, Krampus - 2 goals, 4 assists, 2 PPP, 2 hits, 1 block

Goon of the Week:  Dylan Cozens, C, Puck - 14 hits

Blockhead of the Week: Brandt Clarke, D, Assassins - 12 blocks

Net Minder of the Week:  Jake Oettinger, Raisins - 3 wins, .940 SV%

CFHL Update Push for the Playoffs

 Its time for that push for the playoffs in the CFHL!  The two division winners get the top two seeds and then the next 4 teams in the standings round it out.  We only have 3 more weeks in the regular season, so now is the time!

It would appear that the Assassins are pretty much a lock for the Number 1 seed with 96 points, 15 more than the next team!  They have three players with over 30 goals led by Draisaitl and Robertson both with 34 goals.  Draisaitl also leads the team in assists (58) and PPP (40). 

Space Monkey Mafia lead the Smyth division but only by 2 points above the Slapshots.  These guys last week got 6 goalie wins for the week.  Yes that's right, 6! And of course against the Goon Crew.  Lane Hutson on their blue line is having a monster of a season and leads the team in assists with 53!  That is huge for a D-man. 

The next four would be Slapshots, defending champ Who Gives a Puck, Raisins and Greek Empire.  Only 5 points separate this group from 3-6 seeds.  On the outside looking in only 1 point back is the Goon Crew and the Krampus Carols.  The Goon Crew before last week was sitting comfortably in a playoff spot, until they lost 6-1 to the Space Monkeys.  

The Goon Crew have some serious goal scoring issues (only 4 last week) but with a healthy Gibson in net could try to turn it around.  They have a huge match up this week with the Raisins.  The Raisins have enjoyed the play of their young outstanding center Celebrini who has tallied 32 goals to go along with his 57 helpers!

The Slapshots are looking to take over the Smythe division spot if they can catch the Space Monkey.  Slapshots are full of "Hanson" type players with 4 players with over 100 hits led by Brenden Dillon's 158 hits!

Tall task this week for the Greek Empire as they take on the Assassins.  But when you have Connor McDavid anything is possible.  McDavid has 73 assists and 43 PPP so far on the season!  The Empire also have 6 players with over 40 assists, including 3 defenseman!