 |
| Power
Play |
17.3%
- 7th |
| Penalty
Killing |
85.1%
- 1st |
| FORWARDS |
| KAHLIL
THOMAS |
30-45-75
(+25) |
| CHRIS
REBERNIK |
32-35-67
(+17) |
| RYAN
WEBB |
27-29-56
(+6) |
| DEFENSEMEN |
| C.
SWARTZENTRUBER |
9-28-37
(+3) |
| ANDREW
MORRIS |
5-18-23
(+12) |
| CRAIG
GEERLINKS |
2-15-17
(+17) |
| GOALTENDERS |
| RYAN
PERSON |
15-14-1
(1 SO)
3.65 GA
.894 PCT |
|
| TIM
HAUN |
13-3-3
(1 SO)
2.45 GA
.920 PCT |
|
 |
|
 |
| |
Jacksonville
vs Knoxville |
|
|
SCHEDULE |
|
1 |
APR.
10 |
JACKSONVILLE
2 - KNOXVILLE 6 |
SEED
2 |
2 |
APR.
12 |
KNOXVILLE
4 - JACKSONVILLE 3 |
SEED
1 |
30-17-5
(65) |
3 |
APR.
13 |
JACKSONVILLE
2 - KNOXVILLE 4 |
23-16-4
(68) |
|
4 |
APR.16 |
KNOXVILLE
at JACKSONVILLE |
|
| |
5 |
APR.
17 |
JACKSONVILLE
at KNOXVILLE |
|
| Knoxville
Wins Series 3-0 |
|
SERIES
PREVIEW |
| |
Jacksonville,
FL - Call it a meeting of the irresistible force
and the immovable object. That’s what it will look like
Thursday night at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum when the
Jacksonville Barracudas and the Knoxville Ice Bears meet
in Game one of the SPHL Finals. The best-of-five series
pitting the top seeded Ice Bears and the second seeded
Barracudas promises to be an entertaining set featuring
solid goaltending, great special teams and outstanding
offensive and defensive talent.
“Both teams are very similar to each other in that we
have great defenses and during the season both of our
power plays struggled,” Knoxville coach Scott Hillman
said. “Both teams have some great players but I think
the difference will be the third line guys, the names
that people don’t know. There’s going to be some great
hockey played.”
Ever since the SPHL was formed, Knoxville has been thought
of as the team that everyone wants to beat. They have
been at or near the top of the standings every season,
as their three regular season championships in four seasons
can attest to, as well as winning the 2006 President’s
Cup as the playoff champions.
First year coach Scott Hillman has guided the Ice Bears
through some rough seas this season but maintained the
team’s lofty goals. Though they seemingly struggled through
the semifinal series against Columbus, going five games
before dispatching the Cottonmouths, Knoxville sports
a lethal combination of talent.
In the postseason, just as he had been during the regular
season, Kevin Swider (3-7-10, minus 1) is the focal point
of the offense. Line mate Tim Vitek (1-4-5, minus 1) compliments
the league’s MVP very well. Then there’s Mike Craigen
(1-3-4, minus 3) who is at his best when he’s taking the
opposition off of its game along with late season acquisition
JJ Wrobel (2-2-4, even) to balance the attack across the
lines.
On defense, Jason Lepine (1-5-6, minus 1) and Brett Smith
(2-3-5, plus 2) have added scoring to their steady play
on the blue line. Add in players like Art Mnatsakanov
(0-1-1, minus 1), Kevin Harris (2-1-3, minus 2) and Paul
Lynch and it is no wonder why the Ice Bears’ penalty killing
units have allowed only one goal in 25 times short in
the playoffs.
Goaltending has become solid with the emergence of Kirk
Irving. He is 3-1 so far this postseason with a nifty
2.53 goals against average. In Hillman’s opinion, Irving
is just one reason why Knoxville is in the finals.
“Kirk has been just outstanding. He’s so calm in tight
situations,” Hillman said. “He’s the reason why our penalty
killing has been so good in the playoffs.” Considered
among the second tier of teams in the first two years
of the SPHL, the Jacksonville Barracudas have become a
big time player as they head for their second straight
appearance in the marquee series. Last season, coach Rick
Allain stabilized what had been a very fluid roster the
year before and caught everyone’s attention when as the
sixth seed his squad knocked off the first place Columbus
Cottonmouths in four games before losing to Fayetteville
in the finals. This year, with expectations raised, he
managed to keep the ship steady, made a handful of key
acquisitions and had the Barracudas challenging Knoxville
for first place on the final night of the regular season.
Coming off of a scintillating three game series with Fayetteville,
Jacksonville may be finding its peak at the right time.
Goaltender Tim Haun is hotter than hot, giving up just
six goals in three games against the powerful FireAntz
offense. He out dueled Chad Collins of the FireAntz, last
season’s playoff MVP. Defensively, the Barracudas blue
liners are beginning to tighten up by blocking shots and
giving Haun clear looks at shots coming at him. The penalty
killing units have allowed just three goals in 30 times
short handed making the Barracudas the second best squad
in the league behind Knoxville.
On offense, Jacksonville seems to be clicking on all cylinders.
Jim Murphy (3-6-9, plus 2), the hero of the Fayetteville
series clincher, leads a list of eight players with at
least four points in the playoffs. Rookie Frank Furdero
(3-5-8, plus 1) continues to impress while veterans Geoff
Rollins (3-2-5, minus 1) and Kahlil Thomas (3-2-5, minus
3) are threats every time they hit the ice. The biggest
change from the season may be the Barracudas’ power play
which has 10 goals in 39 chances in the playoffs.
“We give the guys full marks. We’ve spent a lot of time
on it over the last month,” Allain said. “They’ve really
responded and stepped up and taken ownership of it. It’s
huge at this time of year. You can find an advantage because
the (open) ice is so hard to come by. Goals are so hard
to come by so if you can squeeze a couple in on the special
teams, it makes a huge difference.”
Because of building availability issues, the series will
be played as a 1-1-1-1-1 set. Following Thursday’s Game
one, the teams will travel to Jacksonville for Game two
on Saturday then immediately return to Knoxville for Game
three on Sunday. If necessary, Game 4 will be in Jacksonville
on Wednesday, April 16 and Game five is set for Thursday,
April 17 in Knoxville.
When asked about having or not having home ice, Allain
said that in the long run it doesn’t really matter where
the games are played.
“We have to win three games, where ever they’re played.
We can play them here. We can play them there. We can
play them under the James Point bridge. We don’t care,”
he said. “Obviously when you’re in the finals, you’re
expecting to play the best (team). We’ll be ready.”
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com |
|
|
Game
1 |
Jacksonville
2 - Knoxville 6 |
| by
Don Money - PROHOCKEYNEWS.COM |
Knoxville
Leads Series 1-0 |
Knoxville,
TN - Prior to the start of the SPHL finals, Knoxville Ice Bears
coach Scott Hillman stated that with the way the schedule for the best-of-five
series was set up, game one was going to be very important to building momentum.
Thanks to two goals by Corey Rutt and big point nights by Kevin Swider and Kevin
Harris, the Ice Bears took control of that momentum and gained the early series
lead with a resounding 6-2 victory over the Jacksonville Barracudas at the
Knoxville Civic Coliseum Thursday night. The two teams will travel south for
Game Two Saturday night in Jacksonville.
Early on, it looked like the contest might be a shootout. The host Ice Bears got
on the board first at the 2:22 mark of the opening period when Ben Manny set up
teammate Rutt who beat Jacksonville goalie Tim Haun. Less than two minutes
later, the Barracudas answered back when Frank Furdero continued his hot
scoring, tying the game at one. The visitors had a decided advantage early on,
getting seven of the game’s first nine shots on net but Knoxville netminder
Kirk Irving held the fort. His efforts paid off when on a power play in the
final minute of the period, regular season MVP Swider weaved his way through a
couple of defenders and put the puck past Haun to give the Ice Bears a 2-1 lead
at the intermission.
Knoxville had built some momentum in the latter stages of the first and carried
that confidence into the second. While the offense was peppering Haun, the
defense was allowing just one shot in the first ten minutes of the middle
period. The Ice Bears’ territorial advantage finally paid off at the 14::52 mark
when defenseman Kevin Harris sent Rutt and Phil Cherneski out on a two-on-one
break. Cherneski got the puck to Rutt and he bagged his second goal of the night
to make it 3-1. Just over a minute later, Jacksonville’s Geoff Rollins took a
slashing penalty and Knoxville once again made the Barracudas pay when Mike
Craigen hit the back of the net to boost the Ice Bears’ lead to 4-1. By the time
the period ended, Knoxville had pounded Haun with 15 shots while Jacksonville
could only muster three on Irving at the other end.
Jacksonville needed a spark of some kind so coach Rick Allain replaced Haun in
net with Ryan Person, hoping for a lift from the goalie who had carried the team
into the finals a year ago. An early power play opportunity backfired on them when a turnover at
the blue line led to a shorthanded goal by Knoxville’s Bobby Joe Pelkey at the
5:54 mark. Rollins got that goal back with one of his own at 7:11 of the stanza
but Knoxville had an answer as Tim Vitek scored the Ice Bears’ third power play
goal of the night at 14:22 to effectively seal the victory.
Game notes: Harris’ four assists early doubled
his scoring output for the entire playoffs…Swider’s goal
and two assists give him a league-leading 13 points this
postseason, four more than Jacksonville’s Furdero and
Jim Murphy, who have nine points apiece…Knoxville’s power
play, ranked sixth in the league during the regular season,
was nearly perfect in Game One, scoring on three of four
opportunities while Jacksonville went 0-3...After putting
10 shots on Irving in the first period, Jacksonville mustered
just 11 during the final two periods of play…The Barracudas
played without defenseman Billy Rochefort who was injured
in the series clinching victory over Fayetteville Monday
night…Knoxville has yet to lose at home in the playoffs,
winning all four games it has played at the Civic Coliseum.
Jacksonville has yet to win a contest in Knoxville this
season so far, losing all four regular season tilts along
with Game One of the finals.
Contact the author at
don.money@prohockeynews.com |
|
| Game
2 |
Knoxville
4 - Jacksonville 3 |
| by
Don Money - PROHOCKEYNEWS.COM |
Knoxville
Leads Series 2-0 |
Jacksonville,
FL - In general, when one team dominates play and accumulates double the shots on net than its opponents do, you would expect that squad would have a big “W” on its side of the ledger. Then again, when your team has a hot goaltender and timely special teams, you don’t need a lot of shots to be successful.
That was the case Saturday night when the Knoxville Ice Bears took full advantage of the 39 save effort of net minder Kirk Irving, two goals from Tim Vitek and another near perfect performance by its power play to defeat the Jacksonville Barracudas 4-3 in game two of the SPHL finals in Jacksonville. The victory put Knoxville one win away from its second President’s Cup championship in three seasons with game three back in Knoxville on Sunday.
“Kirk was focused. He’s just been dynamite all playoffs,” Knoxville coach Scott Hillman said. “Everyone feels real good. They feel very comfortable so we just hope we can keep it hot for a few more games.”
Knowing that they were facing a long drive back to Knoxville, Jacksonville needed to come out firing. The strategy was negated just 1:55 into the first period when Rob Colangelo took a boarding penalty. It took the Ice Bears just 31 seconds to capitalize when Kevin Swider slid a perfect pass to Vitek who fired a one-timer past Barracudas net minder Ryan Person. As the stanza wore on, Jacksonville began to carry the play but Irving in the Knoxville goal was equal to the task, stopping all 14 shots sent his way.
“I thought we played well enough to win but unfortunately for us tonight the game is monitored on the scoreboard,” Jacksonville coach Rick Allain said. “We didn’t find a way to capitalize enough.”
The Barracudas started the second period with the same intensity they had in the first. Jim Murphy had a golden opportunity a little over a minute in but Irving stoned him. With their goaltender stopping everything in sight, Knoxville bided its time and struck again on the power play at the 7:06 mark when Kevin Harris fed JJ Wrobel for a blast from the point that beat Person through a screen.
Jacksonville got itself back into the contest two minutes later when Ryan Webb beat the defense along the boards and cut in front. His shot eluded Irving’s glove and slid its way across the line to cut the margin to 2-1. The Barracudas continued to press for the equalizer but came up empty. Down the other end, the ever-opportunistic Ice Bears went on the power play and for the third time cashed in as Vitek dug the puck out of a pileup in front of Person and flipped it in for his second of the night. Once again Jacksonville had won the territorial game and out-shot Knoxville in the period (16-6) but found themselves in an even bigger hole than at the end of the first.
“We sat back. We got extremely lucky,” Vitek said. “They (Jacksonville) had all the pressure. We had the first nine minutes of the first period. Other than that, the next 51 minutes, they basically did whatever they wanted against us. If it wasn’t for the power play, right now we’d be in a world of trouble.”
As the third period started, the Barracudas began playing with more desperation. It worked right away as Chris Rebernik scored a mere 17 seconds in to again cut the Knoxville lead to one. Once again, the Ice Bears appeared to be penned in by Jacksonville but the patient offense found a break at the 6:57 mark when Bobby Joe Pelkey crossed the Barracudas’ blue line and whipped a wrist shot that surprised Person to restore the two goal cushion at 4-2. Jacksonville kept plugging and when Chad Swartzentruber blew a wicked slap shot past Irving at 9:57 of the period, the lead was 4-3 for the Ice Bears. Try as they might, Jacksonville never was able to get the game-tying goal as Irving and the Knoxville defense tightened up and held the home team at bay until the final buzzer went off. By the end of the contest, the Barracudas had racked up 42 shots on Irving to just 20 by the Ice Bears on Person.
“They (the Knoxville defense) were doing a great job in front of me. The shots I did stop, they were making it a little bit easier for me by clearing any traffic in front of me,” Irving said. “I thought they were still doing a great job no matter how many shots I faced.”
With their backs to the wall, Allain thinks that if his Barracudas can duplicate their effort from game two on Sunday in game three, they have a shot a extending the series to a fourth contest back in Jacksonville on Wednesday.
“I don’t know that we can play with any more desperation. We played with a lot of desperation tonight. I think we won the majority of the puck battles. I though we did an exceptional job of taking away their ice through the neutral zone with our hustle and fore checking angles,” he said. “If we duplicate it tomorrow night, hopefully one of those bounces off the shin pads will go into their net.”
Contact the author at
don.money@prohockeynews.com |
|
| Game
3 |
Knoxville
2 - Jacksonville 4 |
| by
Don Money - PROHOCKEYNEWS.COM |
Knoxville
Wins Series 3-0 |
Knoxville,
TN - In 2006, the Knoxville Ice Bears were on top of the SPHL world, winning the league championship for the first time. Forward Kevin Swider was in the early stages of a run of individual performance the likes of which the league may never see again.
Two years later, the song is still the same.
Led by the artful play of Swider, the scoring of line mate Tim Vitek and the steady play of playoff MVP Kirk Irving, the Ice Bears made it two championships in three seasons by defeating the Jacksonville Barracudas 4-2 to sweep the finals series three games to none.
“When we won the first one, it was kind of a shock,” Swider said. “We’ve been at the top of the standings all four years. We’ve got something special going on here. It’s just nice to pull it off like this.”
Both sides knew that game three would be a war of wills after each team endured a long overnight bus ride from Jacksonville to Knoxville. The Ice Bears wanted to jump on the Barracudas early to get both their home fans and themselves going. Corey Rutt gave his teammates an immediate lift when he stole the puck behind the Jacksonville net and fed Bobby Joe Pelkey who beat Jacksonville goalie Ryan Person at the 1:19 mark That margin grew to 2-0 midway through the period when Swider, ever the opportunist, took the puck behind the net and played a perfect carom off of the back of Person’s leg and in.
The visitors could have easily folded the tents but instead rallied quickly. At 12:12, captain Kahlil Thomas found the puck in the high slot. His blast found its way behind Irving to slice the lead to 2-1. Ten seconds later, Ryan Webb was the recipient of a cross crease pass from Connor MacDonald. Webb didn’t miss and just like that, the score was knotted at two.
“We had a lot of confidence coming in. I think we knew that if we played our best, we had a pretty good chance of winning,” Jacksonville coach Rick Allain said. “Unfortunately the intangibles weren’t with us tonight. We gave it everything we had. We lost to a good hockey club.”
The second period was a defensive struggle that saw both netminders make big saves. Person was the first, keeping Matt Pierce’s wrap around from crossing the line by diving across the crease. Not to be outdone, Irving faced a similar situation when Geoff Rollins tried a similar move. Irving, as he had throughout the playoffs, made the save to preserve the tie. The deadlock lasted until the 17:32 mark when Vitek won the puck out of a scramble and pushed it home to send the Ice Bears to the final period with the lead.
“I can’t say enough about the players that we put together. They worked so hard and did everything they needed to do to win this,” Knoxville coach Scott Hillman said. “They are well deserving.”
Jacksonville knew it was up against the wall and began throwing everything it had at the Ice Bears in the third. Time after time, Irving and the defense answered the challenge. The tension continued to build until the clock read 6:34 remaining when the Barracudas’ Andrew Morris took a hooking penalty. The Knoxville power play, which had failed in three previous attempts in the game, picked the perfect time to click when Vitek collected the rebound of a Kevin Harris shot off the backboards and rifled a one timer past Person. The goal sent the 2,200 home fans into a frenzy as they could sense the impending championship. All that was left for Knoxville to do was to kill the remaining time and celebrate.
For players like Art Mnatsakanov, who has been in the league for four years and met with only heartache in the past, it was a moment to savor.
“It feels amazing. In my first three years in the league I went to the finals and all three years I lost,” he said. “Just to be able to hold up the cup, it’s amazing. It’s the best feeling ever.”
And for players like Swider and Mike Craigen, who are the links to the first title, being able to do it on home ice was special.
“It feels amazing for everyone who has been with us all these years and to be able to see us do it on home ice, it feels amazing,” Craigen said. “It’s a great group of guys and we deserve this.”
Game notes: Swider led the league in playoff scoring,
tallying five goals and 13 assists for 18 points. The
next closest players were teammates Vitek and Harris who
had ten apiece…MVP Irving earned his award by posting
a 2.45 goals against average and a .924 save percentage.
In the finals, he stopped 88 of 95 shots fired his way…Jacksonville’s
offense was paced in the finals by Frank Furdero and Jim
Murphy with nine points each…Knoxville’s penalty killing
was astonishing, allowing just one goal in 39 chances
which equated to a 97.44 kill rate.
Contact the author at
don.money@prohockeynews.com |
|
|
 |
|
 |
| Power
Play |
18.2%
- 6th |
| Penalty
Killing |
78.6%
- 5th |
| FORWARDS |
| KEVIN
SWIDER |
38-60-98
(+26) |
| TIM
VITEK |
20-32-52
(+8) |
| MIKE
CARTER |
17-27-44
(+18) |
| DEFENSEMEN |
| KEVIN
HARRIS |
10-25-35
(+32) |
| ART
MNATSAKANOV |
5-16-21
(+7) |
| PAUL
LYNCH |
1-18-19
(+15) |
| GOALTENDERS |
| KIRK
IRVING |
19-9-3
(0 SO)
3.01 GA
.904 PCT |
|
| JORDAN
RAMSTEAD |
2-1-0
(0 SO)
3.51 GA
.896 PCT |
|
|
|
