http://chl.ca/article/2018-mastercard-memorial-cup-logo-unveiled

Welcome to the Thursday ramblings, I will go over the latest KHL awards Kontroversy (Yes I have always been a Mortal Kombat fan, minus the new and improved micro-transactions) and memorial cup updates. Yay, fun happy time! Let’s go!

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On Wednesday the KHL handed out its awards to the top players for the 2017-18 season. A few routine ones you would expect:

Best player: Nikita Gusev

Pretty much expected as he is one of the best players in hockey not playing in the NHL.

Best Defenseman: Philip Larsen

His first season back in the KHL and he is named top defenseman. You would think NHL teams would figure out how to use him but apparently Vancouver, Edmonton, and Dallas never did. He has another two years left on his contract, but he will likely stay in the KHL for the remainder of his career.

Best Rookie: Vitaly Kravtsov

Yes exactly who you would expect to win the award. Kravtsov, before playing extremely well in the playoffs with 11 points in 16 games, he had a massive seven points in 35 regular season games. As we all know seven points in 35 games, A 0.20 POINT PER GAME AVERAGE, is much tougher than a MEASLY 36 points in 49 games, which is a much smaller 0.73 points per game. As we all know 0.200000 > 0.73, see, math.

This is to take nothing away from Kravtsov skill and player-wise, I think he has the skill to be a top six NHL forward and the only reason he will go in the latter-half of the NHL draft is because of the dumb #RussianFactor.

Let us get this straight though Eeli Tolvanen should have won this hands down, politics were likely involved. This would be like Joel Eriksson Ek winning the Calder this season over Mathew Barzal. Ok, rant over.

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Let us now recap the Memorial Cup action from Sunday, and if I can stay up I will go over tonight’s action once game 7 is over (TBay vs WSH).

Sunday:

Acadie-Bathurst Titans 8 – 6 Regina Pats

The Titans ended the first up 3-1 and then doubled up the Pats to end the second 6-2. Regina brought it close in the end going from down 7-2 to 7-6 before Noah Dobson scored on an empty net with one second remaining for the Titans

Sam Steel was named the second star of the game as he had four assists, including assisting on the first three third period goals.

Noah Dobson went two and two for four points as well, to earn himself the first star of the game. Over-ager Jeffrey Truchon-Viel also had two and two as a strong playoff performance could gain him an NHL contract. Third star went to Liam Murphy as he had a goal and two assists.

Monday:

Hamilton Bulldogs 2 – 1 Swift Current Broncos

Marian Studenic, the Devils 2017 fifth rounder, continued his late game heroics scoring the go-ahead-goal with two minutes left in the third to give Hamilton the win.

Stuart Skinner almost stole this one for the Broncos stopping 54 of 56 shots he faced, and that was easily enough to earn him top star honours. Kaden Fulcher stopped 21 of 22 shots to come away with the third star, but this game was dominated by Hamilton in the end.

Tuesday:

Hamilton Bulldogs 3 – 2 Acadie-Bathurst Titans

Robert Thomas was the driving force behind the Bulldogs in this game and Fulcher had another strong game stopping 33 of 35 shots, as the teams were close all game but ultimately an early powerplay goal from Thomas sealed the victory.

Truchon-Viel did all he could to keep his team in the game as he was in on both titans’ goals, scoring one and assisting on the other. Dobson also assisted on both goals as he has kept up his strong tournament play.

Wednesday:

Regina Pats 6 – 5 Swift Current Broncos

Sam Steel had himself a game, getting the primary assist on the first FOUR Pats goals, but he sadly was only able to get one more assist out of the final two goals for Regina. Nick Henry (Col – 4^th rounder) was the benefactor of Steel as he had a hat-trick in the win.

The top line of the Broncos really woke up this game (minus Steenbergen who was out with injury) as Heponiemi had a goal and three assists while Gawdin had two goals and an assist in a losing cost.

Both goalies had poor outings as Stuart Skinner only stopped 22 of 28 shots for a rare off night, and Max Paddock didn’t fare much better with 26 saves on 31 shots but won the game.

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Swift Current is now eliminated and Regina and Hamilton will play an exhibition game Friday with the winner taking on the Acadie-Bathurst Titans, who have not played since Tuesday, on Sunday night. Get your TV’s ready!

That is all for me. Follow my twitter here I am trying to get to 200,000 followers and I am pretty sure I am at like 182… @FHPQuinn

Good job exercising those demons Capitals. Go Ovi and Backstrom!