The Chiefs travel down the 401 to Leamington (not Essex as originally reported) on Saturday to play game one of the Quarter Final Playdown against the Sun County Panthers. But, before we start to breakdown this series, let's take a look back at the last few games of the regular season and final stats.
The Chiefs followed up a great comeback against Huron Perth with a solid effort against the Knights. The Knights came out fast and were completely dominating the game until 5 minutes into the second when the Chiefs coach called a timeout immediately after London went up 1-0. I'm not sure what was said, but it seemed to work as the boys bounced back and provided some good competition for the remainder of the game. Good competition does not equal a win, however, but all-in-all it was a satisfying loss (not that a loss is ever satisfying to me).
The Chiefs now had 4 games remaining. 2 against the 4th place Sting, one against the Rangers and the final game against the Cyclones. Winning the 2 against the Sting was critical to ensure a 3rd place finish and not have to face London in the first round of Playdowns. The Chiefs did just that, winning both games against Lambton, losing to Kitchener and tying a meaningless game against Chatham to close it out.
Final stats can be found here:
Final stats (Preseason, Regular and Tournaments)
You can see that home cooking was good for us. We scored more and had a much better record at home. This is odd, since we don't really have a "home". But next year ....
Playdown - Quarter Final
We find ourselves in a similar position to last season. Playing Sun County without home-ice advantage. We have had better success against this team this season and hopefully this will carry forward to the playoffs. We split the 4 games with them, each team going 1-1 at home. In fact, each team scored 12 goals in the season series so this one figures to go at least 4, or, most likely, 5 games. The little things will determine the winner of this series - although everyone knows goal-tending is always an important factor. Things like staying out of the box, taking advantage of their penalties, being physical will be determining factors in the winner of this series.
The good news for the winner is that they will not have to face London in the next round. The bad news is that the teams in the East are almost as scary. I hope for the opportunity to take on the best of the East in the semi's.
The schedule is posted in the quick-links section of our main page.