2010–11 D1 post-season recap

April 14, 2011

Spiders run into hot goaltending all week, grinding out come-from-behind wins all week until the final

The AHA Hockey Weekend in Bloomington marathon is over for the 2010–11 season, and though the Spiders found themselves in reach of the D1 trophy, they came up on the short end of the Easton Sunday vs. a ready and willing Lumberjacks team, who made it to the final for the first time in their history and skated away with hardware.

The Spiders were seeded no. 1 in Pool C thanks to their AHA-best 19–0–1 record in the regular season. The fourth-place Chaos from D1 West had the fourth seed, with the D1 North Wingmen and D1 East Diablos rounding out the pool.

The playoffs opened just as the regular season had, vs. the Chaos. Only unlike last year, the Spiders had owned the Chaos all season, the first game being the closest, but the other two regular season games resulting in blowouts. The playoff opener took its cue from the blowouts, as the Spiders blanked the Chaos 4–0, getting Travis Fransen his second career shutout, and finally casting aside the Curse of the Chaos that had haunted the Spiders for a year.

Spiders vs. Wingmen, April 8.

Friday night, the Spiders faced another familiar squad in the Wingmen. Not only do the Spiders and Wingmen have a long history on the ice, the Wingmen’s goaltender was none other than former Spider netminder Jeff Keacher. The Wingmen were coming off a tie with the Diablos in the opening round, and needed a win to stay alive for a chance at moving to the next round. The Wingmen implemented their game plan perfectly, keeping the Spiders off the board through two periods, while holding their 1–0 lead. Jason Freed finally got the Spiders on the board early in the third, but the Wingmen went back ahead halfway through the period. Then, with four minutes left, the Semper Fi line took advantage in the Wingmen zone to re-knot the game. With no overtime in round robin play, the Wingmen were desperate to get a goal. However, the “Bucs” line of Pettengill, Droullard and Ungaro were in their way, and with just 25 seconds left on the clock, a perfect setup from Droullard to Ungaro got the huge BIG crowd on its feet with an amazing go-ahead goal, shutting down the Wingmen’s hopes, and putting the Spiders into position to win out in the round-robin.

Shootout win over Northern Horde, April 9, 2011.

For the final round-robin game noon Saturday, there were more familiar faces, and more familiar rink dimensions, the Spiders and Diablos met at SLP — with finally some well-groomed ice for the playoffs. The Diablos sat with three points in the pool standings, thanks to the initial tie with the Wingmen, and beating the Chaos 4–1 the night before. They’d need a win to move on to the next round. And in order to win, they’d need to do what no team had been able to do all season: beat the undefeated Spiders. And that’s exactly what they did. Despite heavily being heavily outshot — enough to set Spider franchise records for shots for and against in a loss — the Diablos’ AHA no. 3 netminder Todd Latterner had a career game, holding Spiders to just one goal (by Eric Grotbeck late in the third) on 42 shots. With the win, the Diablos jumped ahead of the Spiders in the pool standings, and throwing a wrench in the Vegas odds of the two top D1 teams (Northern Horde and Spiders) meeting in a marquee final.

Instead, those two teams met for the semi-final Saturday night, as the Spiders got the nod as the lone wildcard team in D1 thanks to their two wins in pool play and a slate of ties for the rest of the middle-of-the-pack teams. And the game lived up to its billing, two equally matched teams playing equally matched hockey. Through regulation, each team had two goals, 18 shots and four penalties. Even up. The runtime overtime expired with no change on the BIG 3 scoreboard. That meant the Spiders participated in their franchise first-ever shootout. With the suspense palpable from the BIG crowd and the player benches, each team sent their selections out. With both Cody Yard and Jake Cison getting the puck past the Horde’s AHA no. 2 netminder Kangas, and Fransen shutting down the Horde shooters, the Spiders emerged with the win, and spilled onto the ice to celebrate the win and a return to the D1 championship.

D1 Championship vs. Lumberjacks, April 10, 2011.

In the D1 title game, the Spiders faced off against longtime opponents the Lumberjacks, who in three years of trying, had never made it to the final, usually getting chopped down in the round robin. But this year was their year. They advanced by eliminating the Diablos 1–0 the night before in the other semi-final. And playing in front of yet more solid goaltending, the Lumberjacks got up to a 3–0 lead after one period, 4–0 after two. But the two come-from-behind wins Friday and Saturday were all the tricks the Spiders were able to pull out their helmets this playoff weekend. With four games in 42 hours, the injuries had piled up, and Spiders appeared to the packed and loud BIG 1 crowd to have just fumes left in the tank. The Spiders had no answer to the Lumberjacks’ offense and got no help from the posts or crossbars, and couldn’t turn the tide during the frequent penalties throughout the game. The Spiders managed one lone goal, a shorthanded marker by Mike Johnson, to at least negate the shutout. Though the league misplaced the stat sheet after the game, meaning the Spiders committed no penalties all game as far as the stats are concerned, the result itself was recorded in the books, and Spiders were defeated 4–1 and the Lumberjacks were crowned the the D1 Champions.

What did the AHA have to say about the D1 playoffs? Here’s their recap:

Lumberjacks: 2010–11 D1 Champions

The D1 Championship game featured two teams that narrowly escaped their semifinal matches. The Spiders advanced to the championship game with a thrilling 3–2 shootout victory over the Northern Horde on Saturday night, while the Lumberjacks survived a defensive battle against the Diablos, 1–0. In a game that was closer than the scoreboard would indicate, the Lumberjacks took the top honor with a 4–1 victory.

2010–11 Post-Season … by the numbers

And full pool standings, based on tiebreaker rules:

D1 playoff pools

Initial playoff seeding was as follows:

D2 post-season

And for posterity, the D2 results, as some of these teams may move up to D1 next year. The Silverbacks upset the heavily favored Fighting Loons for the championship. Of note, the Chaos D2 squad was prevented from advancing to the final thanks to a final-game tie by the Ice Sages.

Initial D2 seeding

1. Fighting Loons (18–2–0–0; 36 pts.)
2. Chaos D2 (15–3–2–0; 32 pts.)
3. Silverbacks (14–3–2–1; 31 pts.)
4. Yetis (12–5–3–0; 27 pts.)
5. Ice Sages (12–8–0–0; 24 pts.)
6. Wildcats (8–7–3–2; 21 pts.)