First pro play-off encounter begins

The Victory are treading new ground this season. In their first play-off series in franchise history they have been pitted against their biggest rivals, the Stevenage Beefs. The series looks on paper as tight as you can get. The teams finished tied on points with the Beefs nicking the division title courtesy of games won. Both teams were tight on defence (3rd and 4th) and dominated the shot counter (2nd and 3rd). In their regular season match-up the Victory edged it 5 games to 3, all settled in three standard periods. The common trend was the Beefs running out into the lead only for the Victory to comeback and overhaul them late in the game, not your usual recipe for success. Penalties and brawls were often central to these encounters. All in all it looked like a classic low scoring, bloodied play-off series was in store.

After two games the series is tied one a piece. No doubt Victory GM Buff would have taken that before the first puck was dropped but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a number of headaches to deal with before game 3.

Penalties
So far the Victory have racked up 60 PIMS in two games. Mark Stuart (11), Dennis Seidenberg (14) and James Wisniewski (19) can account for 44 of those. Conversely the Beefs worst 3 offenders are Hossa (5), Backes (10) and Rivet (11). So far the penalty kill has held up (90%) allowing just two Loui Eriksson goals but eventually the floodgates will open. But more crucially this heavy penalty taking is wiping out any momentum the team builds and puts them on the back foot. Not good for a team that has struggled to score this season.

The return of Jack Johnson
The young two way defenseman is available once more after serving a late season suspension. Ordinarily he would take Dennis Seidenberg’s place on the 3rd pairing alongside Colin White. Unfortunately Jack also has a tendency to take many walks to the box plus Dennis has put up a few points already this series. So who gets dropped for Johnson? One potential candidate is Mark Stuart but Johnson has no experience of top line opposition and the play-offs are not the ideal time to start such an assignment. This tricky dilemma means GM Buff may be forced to make changes to an established and successful regular season defensive unit in the middle of the franchise’s first play-off series when the defence is really struggling.

Goaltending
Jose Theodore will rightly attract much attention when goaltending awards are dished out come season end but he is doing himself no favours so far in this series. A .824SV% and 5.14GAA has resulted in two straight pulls. Cam Ward has fared little better (.879%, 4.80) and so Buff cannot simply turn to him. Should the GM stick it out with Theodore and hope he refinds his touch, give Ward a go or look to the farm. Another tricky selection dilemma.

Defence
All of this points to problems in defence. They are conceding too many goals, taking too many penalties and not saving enough shots. Are wholesale changes needed or will minor tweaks suffice. It is a tough call as the Victory find themselves where they didn’t want to be. Not playing to their strengths.

Here's to a long hard thought series! I get the feeling this one could well go the distance.....

Hoping to make it to game 6 at the moment!

If our regular season games are anything to go by then there is no predicting this. Run of form seems to count for nothing.... Hopefully for me Howie Hole can keep up last nights effort though as the first game left a lot to be desired! Not that you are unfamiliar with that given what Theodore has done so far

Viewers saw a much changed side for game 3 as GM Buff rang 6 roster changes.

Jack Johnson returned from suspension and took Mark Stuart's spot alongside Dennis Wideman. With 5 hits and an assist Jack showed his potential to fulfil this role beyond the odd game.

In a shock move rookie Anders Nilsson was called upon to start. The team hoped he could replicate counterpart Howie Howe's form. The 23 year old Swede performed admirably making in 42 saves making him in no way responsible for the loss. He looks set to start game 4.

The forwards still can't find a way past Howe even with the youthful injection of Jonathan Huberdeau, Fillip Fosberg and Nazem Kadri. Brett Connolly replaced TJ Oshie, who was scratched, on the 3rd line alongside Antoine Vermette with Enver Linsen moving to the second line. Jonathan Toews swapped roles with the struggling Vincent Lecavalier in attempt to break up the Backes-Krejci monopoly on the series.

Game 4 is set to see further changes as the Victory try to wrestle back momentum from the Beefs.

The team bounced back from their 6-0 pasting in game 3 to record a solid 4-2 win to tie the series two a piece ahead of game 5. The relief was short-lived however as the Victory suffered the most embarrassing defeat in franchise history, a 8-1 drubbing at the Steakhouse. We look at why this series is slipping away from the Chatham Victory and what they have to do to win both the remaining games in the series.


Even up the shot clock

The Beefs have recorded at least 30 shots in every game so far. The Victory have failed to surpass 30 shots in any game so far. In the regular season the team lead the league by a considerable margin when it came to bombarding the opposition's defence with vulcanised rubber and they must return to these ways and stop giving Howie Howe the night off. Equally besides Dennis Wideman (12) Chatham's own players have not been putting body before puck to help out their goaltenders. Backsides must get used to the ice if the Victory are to even up the shots and their chances off pinning down the Beefs potent offensive threat.

Board up the penalty box door

This was identified as an issue earlier in the series and it continues to persist. Mark Stuart was dropped for his infractions and his replacement Jack Johnson has performed well but colleagues continue to take too many walks leaving their team on the back foot at crucial stages of the game. By comparison the Victory have taken more than 7 times as many penalties as the Boston Shamrocks. How the management deals with this is problematic with the current roster lacking disciplined blue-liners. This may be one area we see movement in the off-season.

Offensive contributions

GM Buff has stated on many occasion he builds his teams with depth. 3 scoring lines not 3 superstars is his moto. The following 8 forwards; Lecavalier, Oshie, Andrei Kostitsyn, Moulson, Lisen, Kadri, Sergei Kostisyn and Sedin have 5 goals and 12 points between them. Heatley and Eriksson have 6 goals a piece whilst rookie Moller, grinder Cullen and 3rd liner Frolik can match the group's points total. The series scoreline is so lop sided outsiders would struggle to see how there is only one game in it.


This all points to another shuffle of the pack. The problem for the Victory is they are still the same cards.