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The 5 Most Surprising Breakthroughs of 2010-2011

In BAL, PWH, SFS, Special Features, STL on May 28, 2011 at 10:46 am

Every year, players rise, players fall. Here are five who unexpectedly broke through in the 2010-2011 regular season, shattered their own career numbers, or otherwise made a difference.

5. RW Tyler Kennedy, Saint Louis Blues

Cast as a roleplayer, Kennedy found himself playing with some of Saint Louis excellent group of centres and delivered with a rock-solid 24 goals. Of those, 5 were game-winners.

4. RW Alexandre Burrows, Baltimore Crab

Burrows’ stock has been rising every season, but nobody saw his 49-goal 2010-2011 performance coming. The agitator led the Crab in scoring on a team that also features names like Evgeni Malkin, Daniel Sedin, and Anze Kopitar. Burrows also led the team in plus-minus and scored 8 shorthanded goals.

3. D Lubomir Visnovsky, Portland Winterhawks

Visnovsky is an excellent offensive defenseman – he’s shown it before and has even cracked the 70-point barrier a couple of times. But he added goal-scoring to his resume in 2010-2011, exploding in the second half to finish with 27 goals – more than any other defenseman in the league.

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Oregon Rugrats Sold; Move to Bay Area Rumored

In News, SFS on May 27, 2011 at 12:43 pm

The Oregon Rugrats, under receivership and league control for what seems like forever, have a new owner. Mike Jordan has taken control of the team, which has just wrapped up a 29-44-7 season in which they allowed the second most goals in the league. Rumors are already swirling that the team could be moving to San Francisco in the off-season. Stay tuned!

First Round Preview: Plante Conference

In News on May 26, 2011 at 9:34 pm

#1 Salem Wannabees (53-22-7) vs. #4 El Dorado Lynx (36-35-11)

 

A late surge propelled the Lynx past the Sterling Eagles on the last day of the season. Their reward? A series against the league’s best team in Salem. The Wannabees boast perhaps the deepest forward corps in the league, including Patrick Marleau, who notched 77 goals in the regular season. The Lynx have some firepower – and a brick wall in net in Tuukka Rask – but they’ll need more than Alex Ovechkin up front to get by Salem.

Season Series
In six meetings – all in the first quarter – the season series between these two teams was 2-2-2. Unfortunately for El Dorado, they were outscored pretty handily in some of those games, including a record-setting 8-goal game for Marleau.

Salem 3 at El Dorado 4
Salem 1 at El Dorado 4
Salem 2 at El Dorado 2 (OT)
El Dorado 1 at Salem 1 (OT)
El Dorado 6 at Salem 12
El Dorado 0 at Salem 5

Top Scorers – Regular Season

Salem

LW Patrick Marleau    82  77  57  134
RW Loui Eriksson      82  42  77  119
C  Nicklas Backstrom  69  21  54   75
D  Dan Boyle          76  18  45   63
C  Pavel Datsyuk      78  28  30   58

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First Round Preview: Sawchuk Conference

In News, Special Features on May 25, 2011 at 9:50 am

#1 Portland Winterhawks (52-23-7) vs. #4  Farmington Fighting Saints (40-34-8)

 

Here they are again. The Portland Winterhawks, thanks to a late-season surge from wingers Ilya Kovalchuk and Jarome Iginla, recaptured the season conference title. But the Farmington Fighting Saints came up big late in the schedule, too, and have three 40-goal scorers in Bobby Ryan, Mikael Samuelsson, and Dustin Penner. Make no mistake – if Farmington prevails over the four-time Gump Cup champ, it will be an upset for the ages.

Season Series
A power imbalance, you say? Not so fast. In their 6 meetings during the season, Portland barely came out ahead at 3-2-1, and one of those wins needed overtime. Both teams scored in bunches, promising an exciting playoff series.

Portland 2 at Farmington 5
Portland 1 at Farmington 5
Portland 6 at Farmington 5 (OT)
Farmington 4 at Portland 4 (OT)
Farmington 7 at Portland 9
Farmington 1 at Portland 5

Top Scorers – Regular Season

Portland

LW Ilya Kovalchuk    71  52  67  119
RW Jarome Iginla     82  62  55  117
C  Joe Thornton      76  18  73   91
D  Lubomir Visnovsky 73  27  45   72
C  Jason Spezza      60  29  42   71

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Sidney Crosby Captures Scoring Crown

In News, SAL, WVR on May 24, 2011 at 11:21 am

It took until the final days of the regular season, but West Virginia River Rat Sidney Crosby has captured the GWMHL scoring title for 2010-2011.

Crosby edged out the Salem Wannabees‘ Patrick Marleau in the fourth quarter, finishing with 136 points to Marleau’s 134. Not only is it Crosby’s first scoring title – it’s the first time the star centre has led his own team in scoring. His 84 assists lead the league.

It’s no surprise that Marleau couldn’t match his record-setting early-season pace. But he still finishes with an incredible league-leading 77 goals – matching the totals of last year’s leader, Midland‘s Zach Parise.

5 Draft Day Near-Rejects Who Made It Big

In DEN, FFS, PIT, Special Features, STE, WIN, WVR on May 21, 2011 at 11:48 am

There’s no art to the late-round draft steal. You take a deep breath and pray… and probably release your pick before he ever plays a game. While quite a few serviceable players have squeaked into the high seventies in the GWMHL Rookie Draft over the years – especially goaltenders – rare is the player taken in the last few picks who makes a real impact.

But here are five taken in the final 10 slots of their respective drafts who defied the odds and made an impact.

5. LW Kyle Calder, 77th overall in 2000 by Staten Island

Winger Calder never lived up to his potential, more or less settling into a 10-15 goal groove for the Staten Island Gems and San Diego Gulls early in his career. But he makes our list for one reason alone: possibly the most surprising single campaign in league history. In 2006-2007, Calder went on a sudden tear, scoring 60 goals and amassing 110 points with the Gulls.

He disappeared just as quickly, chasing his breakthrough with 8 goals total over his next three seasons, then obscurity.

Year   Name                       GP    G    A  PTS  +/-  PIM
01-02  Staten Island Gems         24    0    2    2  -13   10
02-03  Staten Isle Gems           81   14   35   49    0   79
03-04  Staten Island Gems         82   12   13   25   -6   36
04-06  San Diego Gulls            40   13   12   25    4   15
06-07  San Diego Gulls            79   60   50  110   23   52
07-08  San Diego Gulls            69    5   10   15  -12   30
08-09  San Diego Gulls            64    2    5    7  -21   20
09-10  San Diego Gulls            61    1    9   10  -11   18
                  Totals         439  106  127  233  -25  242

4. G Olaf Kolzig, 76th overall in 1994 by Tidewater

Kolzig was taken last overall by Portland in ’94, and he’d be much further up the list if his career numbers – a career goals against average way on the wrong side of 3.00 – weren’t so shaky. But Kolzig was a solid starter in the GWMHL for many seasons, despite playing for some struggling teams. He gets major points for longevity.

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All-Time Greats, Part 1: Keith Tkachuk

In IHS, Special Features on May 13, 2011 at 10:03 am

In 2009-2010, Ice Harbor Storm winger Keith Tkachuk overtook Jaromir Jagr for the GWMHL all-time lead in points and passed Brendan Shanahan for career goals.

Tkachuk will retire at the end of this season. And although this season’s edition of the Storm – a rebuilding squad that’s on its way to missing the playoffs – might not have been able to provide the perfect last hurrah for the winger, he still hangs them up with a Gump Cup in 1999 and well over 600 goals and 1300 points to his name. He’s the first GWMHL player to break either of those barriers and one of the best players the league has seen.

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Milestone: Martin Brodeur Becomes Winningest Goalie

In PWH, Special Features on May 10, 2011 at 11:49 am

A major record fell this season with very little fanfare. Time to right that wrong.

Portland Winterhawks starter Martin Brodeur has taken over the lead in career wins by a goaltender in the GWMHL, surpassing former Winterhawk Dominik Hasek. Brodeur also became the first netminder to break the 400-win barrier. As of the fourth quarter, Brodeur has 416 career wins to Hasek’s 395. The only other active goaltender in the top five is South Park‘s Roberto Luongo with 292.

It’s a bittersweet milestone – many would have liked to have seen Brodeur hit it with the El Dorado Lynx franchise, with whom he played 15 seasons and won three Gump Cups before being traded to Portland at the 2010 draft. But when the team moved to El Dorado, the team went into rebuild mode and Brodeur was shipped out for Tuomo Ruutu. Of course, it works out for everybody – the Lynx shore up their forward corps and Brodeur gets another shot at a championship.

You can find more historical stats on the League History page. Stay tuned – we’ve got a lot of seasons yet to add!

Current Career Win Leaders

1	Martin Brodeur		416
2	Dominik Hasek		395
3	Curtis Joseph		365
4	Roberto Luongo		292
5	Patrick Roy		274

Amazing Race: Teams Vying for Last Playoff Spots

In News on April 22, 2011 at 2:00 pm

With 18 games to go and teams vying to make the top four in their conferences and move on to the post-season, things are heating up in a big way. The 2010-2011’s final quarter is going to be a doozy.

Plante Conference

Salem and South Carolina have solid leads over their respective divisions, but Sterling and Charleston aren’t very far behind. With Baltimore falling off since a hot start, the race to watch is between El Dorado and Sterling: can Alex Ovechkin and the Lynx make up the 3-point deficit for the last playoff berth? The Eagles host El Dorado for three games in the last quarter – they could make all the difference.

PLANTE CONFERENCE
1.  SALEM           86
2.  SOUTH CAROLINA  83
3.  CHARLESTON      74
4.  STERLING        71
    ---
5.  EL DORADO       68
6.  BALTIMORE       61
7.  SOUTH PARK      59
8.  SAN DIEGO       57
9.  MIDLAND         53
10. ALTOONA         38

Sawchuk Conference

The Sawchuk is a conference of extremes:  St. Louis, Portland, and West Virginia are all playoff locks – but behind them are a number of sub-.500 teams hunting for the final spot.

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St. Louis Blues Under New Ownership

In News, STL on April 21, 2011 at 8:52 am

The GWMHL’s St. Louis Blues franchise, which had been under league control, has a new owner in Jeff Meyerhoff. Jeff takes on this team just as it seems poised for a deep Gump Cup run. Welcome, Jeff!