Moose Have an Uphill Climb!

Author: Billy Keane

April 8, 2010

Our Manitoba Moose have had themselves a roller coaster season: win one lose one for almost the entire 80 game schedule.   This certainly isn’t sitting well with Moose brass who have had to assemble new roster virtually every night.  Call –ups, injuries and sub standard performances have made the line-up cards given out at the Moose games a hot commodity each time I have watched a game at the MTS Centre.  In fact, I wonder how many times Coach Arniel has had the same line-up from 1 game to the next?  I would venture to guess, it hasn’t been very often.  From the players perspective, I am sure having new linemates and Defence partners every 2nd night makes generating any chemistry awfully difficult.  For the Coaches, finding that chemistry for is virtually impossible considering they are drawing up new lines and D-pairings every week.  

Coach Arnie and his staff have done a masterful job of finding some synergy with the group they have, and have lead them into the Calder Cup play-offs under extremely tough circumstances.   It wasn’t that long ago that I was concerned that this team might not make the play-offs.   But Coach Arnie and his staff, managed to keep the group focused and steer them through the land-mines they faced trying to secure their right to play for the Calder Cup again this season.

Now having said that about our Moose, it looks like we will face the Hamilton Bulldogs in the first round of the play-offs.   Hamilton has had a terrific season amassing 112 points to date.  The Bulldogs are the class of the Western Conference finishing 1st overall in the Conference, and 2nd overall in the AHL to our arch enemies in Hersey.  Hamilton will be a real tough team to beat.  They have very few weaknesses.  The Bulldogs are quick, tough defensively, and can hurt you on their power play.

With all this uncertainty floating around the MTS regarding the Moose roster, one thing is certain - Moose Goaltender Cory Schneider has been outstanding again this year.  Likely drawing the Moose MVP award again this year, Schneider will be counted on to carry this team on his back if our Moose can upset Hamilton.  The Moose have beaten Hamilton this season.  In fact they have played them even splitting the season series throughout the year.   We beat the Bulldogs, in Hamilton, the last road game of the season with an impressive 2-1 score. Impressive because this will be the type of score the Moose will need to play to upset the Bulldogs – plain and simple.  Our Moose can not afford to play run and gun with Hamilton.   If our Moose keep Hamilton to 2-3 goals against each night, we have a chance to move on to the next round.   If not, I think we will be hard pressed to score more than 3-4 goals per night to beat them.

Obviously our Moose vets will play a huge role.  Captain Mike Keane, Mario Bliznak and Guilluame Desbiens will be key guys who will be given them task of shutting down Hamiltons top dogs.  If our “shut down line” can get their job done, then our forwards match up pretty well with Hamilton’s forwards.  Where is Jason Krog and Jason Jaffray when you need them!

Our defence will need to play at their best every shift for our Moose to be successful.   Unfortunately, we don’t have much room for error with our D-crew.  On the bright side, we do have the best Goaltender in the American League backing them up.  Just think for a second how good our D crew could have been: Mathieu Schneider, Nick Boyton, Nolan Baumgartner, Lawrence Nycholat, Brian Funk, Travis Ramsey as our top six guys, with Brian Salcido, Nathan McIver, Geoff Waugh and Evan Oberg all providing depth.  Wow!!  Pretty impressive group, but wishful thinking.

When you stop to think of the skill level of the players who have been here within the last 12-14 months, you really do have to tip your cap to Craig Heizinger and Bruce Southern who have put together 2 real impressive groups to take a run at the Calder Cup again this year.  And if our guys who are here right now can play they way Coach Arnie has seen them play, we can upset the powerful Bulldogs in 7 games!  Go get ‘em boys!!

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