Friday, April 2, 2010

Weekend Preview

Friday April 2nd- Sioux City v. Waterloo

Sioux City and Tri City are in an intense battle for the fourth spot in the West Division. Waterloo has already locked up their playoff spot in the East, but I think that this will still be a great game.

The Musketeers are led on offense by captain Stephan Vigier, and his linemates, Alex Krushelnyski, and Adam Schmidt. On the blue line, Sioux City has two offensively talented defensemen in Dan Ford and Danny Wurden. Their defensive prospect Kevin Lind, who I previously wrote about, was invited to the NHL Draft Scouting Combine this week with three other USHL players. In net, the Musketeers are protected by Matt Skoff who took the the starting job from NHL prospect Willie Yanakeff earlier in the season.

Waterloo's leading scorer is J.T. Brown, who is supported by Brock Montpetit and Tyler Barnes. Defensively, the Black Hawks have two offensive playmakers, Dan Sova and Zach Palmquist. Waterloo also has Nick Ebert, who I wrote about, a 15 year old defenseman who may be going on to play in the OHL. At goaltender, Waterloo has two goalies that are capable of keeping their teams in the game. Willie Yanakeff is coming off of a very successful weekend and I expect him to get the start on Friday. If Yanakeff doesn't get the start, C.J. Motte is a very capable goalie.

Saturday April 3rd- Tri City v. Sioux Falls

As mentioned before, Tri City and Sioux City are in a battle for that coveted last spot in the West. If the situation works out, this matchup could be the first round matchup in the playoffs.

Tri-City is led by the amazing talent of Jaden Schwartz, who I wrote a report on, and his teammates Radoslav Illo and Brett Mohler. On defense, the Storm have their weakness. Nate Jensen provides some offense back on the blue line, but that's about it. In net, Tri-City has Carsen Chubak who is 19-19-6 on the season.

Sioux Falls is led offensively by Michael Voran and Matt Lindblad who have 73 and 67 points respectively. Chad Ruhwedel leads the Stampede defensemen in points with 22. Goaltender Clay Witt, who I wrote about earlier, has the possibility of being drafted by an NHL team this summer.

Please leave a comment, I would love to hear them!

5 comments:

  1. Still have'nt cleared up 4th place in the West. Very exciting end of the season.

    ReplyDelete
  2. SC's 7 goals last night was Crazy Good.

    I think TC will need to score at least 4 goals tonight to make it into the playoffs...........

    Should be fun to watch.....

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is definitely the most exciting race for the playoffs I can think of in recent memory. With one game left, if Tri City wins, they get an automatic bid to the playoffs, if Tri City loses and SC wins, SC gets the playoff spot. If SC wins and Tri City loses in OT, they will be tied in points. There's so many situations in which the last spot is filled, should be VERY fun to watch.

    ReplyDelete
  4. They got their 4 and their goalie was the difference.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Congrats to Tri-City but I would have loved to see what Sioux City could have done in the playoffs coming of this 17 goal weekend.

    ReplyDelete

Keep it clean, and don't attack individual players.