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...