AND THEY COME DOWN THE STRETCH.....

As the old horse racing saying goes, the Winkler Flyers and the rest of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League are without a doubt coming down the home stretch. At least for me, this season has gone by really fast. Fifty four games are in the books with only eight to go. However, what separates this season from others in recent memory is that the Winkler Flyers....yes, you heard that right...the Winkler Flyers are fighting for first place in the Addison Division.

If you look back at the last few seasons anyway we would be talking about the Flyers sitting comfortably in third or fourth place at this time of year and which away arena they would be starting the playoffs in. But now we are talking about our Orange and Black having a real shot at top spot and home ice advantage throughout the playoffs.

Now to get to their first place goal, the Flyers need to fight off their arch enemies from Selkirk. For the past four seasons they have met in round one of the playoffs. This time they will be battling for first place overall. It’s a little different situation with a bit less intensity and not so much on the line. Both teams are guaranteed to make the playoffs but they are still fighting for the right to go through a 62 game regular season schedule and end up with the best record.

Well let us go a little deeper into who has the best shot at finishing the 2010-11 regular season on top.

First let us look at the Selkirk Steelers.

They have nine games remaining in the regular season (7-Home, 2-Road). They will play the MJHL leading Portage Terriers three times, the Winnipeg Saints twice, and Winkler, Wayway, Steinbach and Neepawa all once. Two of their nine remaining games are against teams that are not playoff bound (Steinbach and Neepawa). The combined record of the Steelers opponents is (160-140-25) for a combined winning percentage of .530. The Steelers only have a winning record against three of those six teams (Saints, Flyers, Natives). They will also be in tough against the Terriers and Wolverines who are hot right now and have a combined record of 17-2-1 in their last 10 games. The Steelers are also stumbling towards the finish line. Heading into the Christmas break, the first place Steelers led the third place Flyers by 12 points for top spot at the time. Winkler has since caught fire and has shrunk that lead to zero. The Steelers are 4-5-1 in their last 10 games and 6-7-2 since Christmas. They are also missing some key people from their line-up. Joel Ridgeway and Kyle Mulder are big loses for them.

Now let’s look at Winkler......

The Winkler Flyers have eight games left in their regular season (5-Home, 3-Road). They play the Winnipeg Saints three times, the Winnipeg Blues twice, Steinbach twice and the Steelers once. Four of their eight remaining games are against teams that are not playoff bound (Blues and Pistons). The combined record of their opponents is (90-105-23) which is a combined winning percentage of .465. The Flyers are 7-0 against the Blues, 4-1-2 against Steinbach, 3-3 against the Saints and 2-4-2 against Selkirk. The Flyers are playing red hot hockey and will only play Addison Division opponents the rest of the way. The confidence is sky high right now which what you want heading into the play-offs. The Orange and Black are 8-1-1 in their last 10 games and are 11-3-2 since coming back from the Christmas break. The Flyers are also healthy (knock on wood) which helps a tonne. Of the Flyers remaining opponents, only the Blues have a winning record in their last 10 games. Winkler seems to me to be the much for focused group right now and it looks like John Marks has his fella's pointed in the right direction.

So to sum up....who do you think has the better chance of winning the Addison Division regular season title? If you ask me, the Flyers have the easier schedule and let’s face it, they are just playing better hockey right now.

It sure makes it a lot more exciting and hopefully will put a lot more butts in the seats now that the good old Winkler Flyers will more than likely be playing meaningful games right to the end.

Let me know what you think (even if you are a Selkirk fan, my feelings won’t be hurt).

But let me leave you with these words of advice. "Since light travels faster than sound, people appear bright until you hear them speak."

LET'S SEE HOW FAR WE'VE COME

Good day Flyer fans and welcome to another riveting blog update. As you may know the situation in Flyerland has been pretty good as of late. There are some of you out there that remember the days gone by when long winning streaks and being in first place (or close to it) where just all part of being a fan of the Winkler Flyers. Well in recent years those two things have not necessarily gone hand in hand with Flyer hockey.

Now as the Flyers get ready to host the Dauphin Kings on Tuesday the team is enjoying their best success not only this season but in the last number of years. The last time the Flyers played the Kings was back on December 11th. The game didn’t go so well for Winkler as they were shut-out 3-0. However, what has happened since then has been truly remarkable. In the 14 games since that day, Winkler has a record of 11-2-1. They have raced up the Addison Division standings and sit just one point back of the division leading Selkirk Steelers. They are also just five points behind Portage for the best overall record in the entire MJHL.

Now the record speaks for itself and everyone is very happy with how things are going but you may be wondering WHY this is all happening. Well let me share with you some interesting points that may help us answer that question. Now before I rattle off the information I need to give some credit. There is a lot of math and detail work involved in the explanation and seeing that I went to school in Saskatchewan I was not qualified to do this alone haha. My good friend Eric Braun will get all the credit for figuring all this stuff out and my only job is to try and spell it out for you without confusion. So here it goes.

The following information should help illustrate why the Flyers went 8-2-1 in January, 6-1-1 since the trading deadline, and why they have won six in a row. Now the following stats are broken into three categories. 1) The six game winning streak. 2) Since the January 10th trading deadline. 3) The month of January.

Power Play
Streak) 24.00%
Deadline) 19.35%
January) 15.91%

Penalty Kill
Streak) 83.87%
Deadline) 85.00%
January) 83.67%

*note* - Throughout most of the season the Flyers PK has been the worst in the MJHL hovering below the 70% mark. These stats prove how much having sound special teams can be the difference between winning and losing. The ability to score one or two more goals per game or allow one or two less goals per game can make a huge difference when you look at a 62 game regular season schedule. Also most NHL teams strive to have a special teams percentage of 110% (PP- 20% and PK 90%). During the Flyers winning streak their percentage is nearly 108%.

Goals For/Goals Against
Streak) 29-15
Deadline) 33-19
January) 43-27

Shots For/Shots Against
Streak) 181-205
Deadline) 251-282
January) 350-364

*note* - An interesting thing about the shots/goals for and shots/goals against is that if you break it down even further, Winkler gives up more shots as the game rolls along but they allow less goals as the game rolls along as well. For example, during their six game winning streak they have given up 21 more shots in the third period as opposed to the first but have allowed 33% less goals in the third period than in the first.


Line Combos

Looking back at the season there have been many line combinations and many of them have worked really well. Over the last month, John Marks and Ernie Sutherland seemed to have found some pretty good chemistry with their line-up. Here is the break down of the top producing lines both forwards and defense.

Streak)
Michael Wilgosh (9)/Jordan Neduzak (9)/Jake Rombach (7) = 25 pts
Matt Loopkey (8)/Seth Ronsberg (8)/Kyle Wells (4) = 20 pts
Richard Little (0)/Jory Mullin (7)/Chapen Leblond (3) = 10 pts
Taylor Wells (1)/Daniel Fainman (3)/Brock Vanderveen (1)/James Buttermore (1) =6 pts

Brad Haber (6)/Blair Osiowy (3) = 9 pts
Justin Minoletti (3)/Troy Kliever (1) = 4 pts

Deadline)
Michael Wilgosh (10)/Jordan Neduzak (11)/Jake Rombach (7) = 28 pts
Matt Loopkey (10)/Seth Ronsberg (8)/Kyle Wells (4) = 22 pts

Brad Haber (6)/Blair Osiowy (4) = 10 pts
Justin Minoletti (4)/Troy Kliever (1) = 5 pts

January)
Michael Wilgosh (12)/Jordan Neduzak (13)/Jake Rombach (10) = 35 pts
Matt Loopkey (11)/Seth Ronsberg (11)/Kyle Wells (6) = 28 pts
Richard Little (2)/Jory Mullin (9)/Chapen Leblond (7) = 18 pts
Taylor Wells (2)/Daniel Fainman (5)/Brock Vanderveen (3)/James Buttermore (4) = 14 pts

Brad Haber (6)/Blair Osiowy (4) = 10 pts
Justin Minoletti (4)/Troy Kliever (2) = 6 pts

GOALTENDING

Ok now let’s look at goaltending. During the streak Reed Peters has played four games and Peter Alexander has played two. In that time Peters has been outplaying his senior by a little bit. But that is no slight on Alexander because his stats are pretty good to. But, in Peters’ last four starts he’s 4-0, he has an even 2.00 GAA and an astounding .943 save percentage. In the entire month of January Reed Peters is 5-1, his GAA is 2.50 and his save % is .928. If you look at the save percentage’s per period throughout the entire month the two Flyer goaltenders buckle down from the opening face-off to the final buzzer as both of their percentage’s improve as the game moves along.

John Marks seems to be getting the most out of his players. They used the January 10th trading deadline to address a need and their decision and analysis of what that need was appears to be correct. Any team can win games but not everyone can do it on a consistent basis. And the Flyers seem to have found a way to do that. For the most part they are playing a solid 60 minute hockey game day in and day out. They are scoring more goals than they are allowing. The special teams are good and the goaltending is great.

If they keep this train going down the track that it is currently on then we will be in for a fun ride. Three out of their next four games are against Dauphin, Portage and Selkirk so we should really find out how good these Flyers are in about a week.

There is still a lot of hockey to be played and I am sure the team is aware of what it will take to keep their solid play going. And as the old saying goes "The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary".