Red Lake vs. Dryden
Dryden regular season snapshot: 1st place. 36-9-5 77 points. W/L Pct. .770.
GF 224 GA 136 Differential +88. PIM 1,067. Streak 0-1-0. Past 10 7-2-1.
PP% 27.0. PK% 81.5. SHGA 7. SHGF 10.
Top six offence:
Max Roby, F, GP 43, 29 G, 36 A, 65 Pts, 35 PIM. McLaren Paulsen, F, GP 35, 23 G, 36 A, 59 Pts, 30 PIM. Payton Hu, F, GP 44, 23 G, 34 A, 57 Pts, 54 PIM. Carson Devine, F, GP 45, 16 G, 39 A, 55 Pts, 57 PIM. Eli Antoine, F, GP 45, 24 G, 22 A, 46 Pts, 52 PIM. Rylan Oatman, F, GP 42, 15 G, 27 A, 42 Pts, 16 PIM.
Played 40-plus regular season games:
Evan Mayer, 42. Nicholas McCallen, 45.
Goaltending:
Kellan Mooney, GP 30, 20-4-1, GAA 2.42, SV% .927, 1,711 Min.
Noah Davis, GP 5, 3-2-0, GAA 3.73, SV% .890, 306 Min.
Head Coach Jake Gushue:
First round bye and the break in action.
“We’ll be ready to go. We’ve had some really good practices since we’ve had the break (last game March 15th). Boys have been really good. Pace has been incredibly high. Personally, I think we’ll be ready to go right from puck drop.”
There are no injuries or suspensions to report. The team is ready personnel-wise.
“We have a full roster going into game one.”
Thoughts on Red Lake. Dryden was 7-0-0 against the Miners this year with two overtime wins.
“Our whole team, especially the coaching staff, were watching the (playoff) games pretty heavily. Red Lake’s a very hard working team. They’re well structured. Very well coached. We have to respect them as our opponents. We’re not going to (rest on our laurels). We’re going to be aggressive, going at it right from puck drop as we always do. We have to play our game. They’re a very good team and their work ethic is quite impressive. . . It’s great we had regular season success. It means nothing. We’re taking it right from square zero.
“We’re happy with our success in the regular season. Everyone in the room, on staff, and in the organization know the job’s not finished. The job’s not finished until we win the Bill Salonen Cup.
“It’s going to be a really hard fought series against Red Lake. It’s going to be a fast hard-hitting series. It’s going to be good for the league. It’s going to showcase how good the SIJHL has become.”
Season series: Dryden 7-0-0. Red Lake 0-5-2.
Most recent: Mar 11. DRY 7 RLM 2.
Other six games: Oct 3rd DRY 3 RLM 2 at DRY. Oct 4th DRY 4 RLM 3 at RLM. Dec 21st DRY 5 at RLM 4 at RLM. Feb 7th DRY 5 at RLM 2. Feb 8th DRY 4 RLM 3 (OT) at RLM. Feb 27th DRY 4 RLM 3 (OT).
Red Lake playoff snapshot: 4W-3L vs SLB
GF 16 GA 22 Differential -6. PIM 103. Streak 1-0.
PP% 20.0. PK% 77.3. SHGA 0. SHGF 1.
Top six offense:
Nathan Dann, F, GP 7, 5 G, 2 A, 7 Pts, 0 PIM. Gabe Tanton, F, GP 7, 1 G, 5 A, 6 Pts, 2 PIM. Noah Tenney, F, GP 7, 4 G 1 A, 5 Pts, 2 PIM. *Quinn Szpak, F, GP 7, 3 G, 1 A, 4 Pts, 2 PIM. Foxx McColl, D, GP 7, 2 G, 2 A, 4 Pts, 8 PIM. Euan Morrison, F, GP 7, 0 G, 4 A, 4 Pts, 16 PIM.
Played all seven playoff games:
Kai Hughes, Bryson Carlyle, *Ryan Heuser, Matthew MacPherson, Justin Gelderland, *Bryant Linklater, *Jager Marshall, *Kayne Pawlick
Goaltending:
Nick Peters, GP 7, 4-3-0, GAA 2.98, SV% .928, 403 Min.
Koen Webber, GP 1, 0-0-0, GAA 3.00, SV% .917, 20 Min.
Coach Lee Stone:
No injuries to report. No lag time.
“The truth of it is when you go to war like that you want to take too many days off in between, because you kinda want the body to keep moving. Do I think there’s an advantage one way or the other? No. Their guys are going to be so excited to play in a hockey game. I know their 20-year-olds didn’t play in the last regular season game of the year. There’s no way those guys aren’t chomping at the bit to get rolling. At the same time, we have been rolling. We’ll roll right into game one and be ready to slow the juggernaut down.”
Prospects of winning.
“They’re an extremely talented team. There’s no question about it. They’re an incredibly gifted team offensively, they can score goals at will. Obviously Kellan Mooney wins goalie of the year, Jake Gushue wins coach of the year–up and down their line-up they are very, very, very talented. We have to be ready for that.
“At the end of the day, if we play our game we are confident against anybody. The reality of it is we play a playoff brand of hockey in my opinion. We’re very structured and we’re difficult to beat five-on-five if we play our game. Obviously we have to work on our special teams–especially our power play. It’s impossible not to coach what we just went through (OT game seven series win over Sioux Lookout) and not be proud of what we accomplished. We start back at square one. If we win this series we firmly believe it’ll be in the final five minutes of the third period. Every period we play, every game we play is building up towards that finals final moments.”
Two points out of a possible 14.
“You could ask some people, they’d think we don’t even belong in the same rink as them. But I have a funny feeling throughout the series that we’ll show we do. Five of those seven games were one-goal games. We’re playing our best hockey at this time of the year. I’ll reiterate they’re a very talented team. They’re very, very, very good.
“We know how incredibly talented Dryden is and how difficult it will be to beat them.”
