CHL Central Hockey League

Sundogs enter playoffs as CHL's hottest team

March 24, 2008 - Central Hockey League (CHL) News Release


The Ray Miron President's Cup playoffs begin tonight with a pair of opening round games but the hottest team at the end of the regular season won't take the ice until Friday night when the Arizona Sundogs open their best-of-seven series versus the New Mexico Scorpions at the Tim's Toyota Center.

Arizona enters the post-season on a nine-game winning streak outscoring their opponents 60-33 over their hot stretch. The addition of Cory Urquhart, assigned by the Phoenix Coyotes on February 20th, gave the team a needed spark as he and line mate Alex Leavitt appeared to have been playing together for years. Urquhart scored at least one goal in each of the final 10 Sundogs games. Leavitt finished the season with a 17-game point streak.

Leavitt's 59 points final two months of the season earned him the CHL's Joe Burton Scoring Championship. On the season, the CHL All-Star scored 128 points 40-88=128. Other hot Sundogs heading into the post-season include Steve Rymsha (10 points in his last five games) and Dusty Collins (five goals in his last five games).

The Arizona power play struck fear in most opponents this season connecting 26.8% of the time (103 for 384). Their mark nearly set the CHL's single season record of 27.5 set by Columbus during the 1996-97 season. Leavitt, Mark Kolanos, Dan Laperiere and Chris Bartolone all scored double-digit power play goals on the season.

BRAHMAS TWO-GAME SEASON-ENDING SLIDE COULD BE TROUBLE

The Texas Brahmas climbed the charts during the last two months of the season posting a 26-5-1 record between January 11th and March 19th. Texas had put themselves in position to be the #3 seed in the Northern Conference avoiding an opening round best-of-three series with Mississippi to see which team will earn the privilege of facing the Governors' Cup champion Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs but losses to the Bugs and to Austin on the final weekend cost them that seed as Youngstown swept the Colorado Eagles leaping past the Brahmas. The RiverKings led the season series with the Brahmas four games to three. The teams play game one of their series tonight at the DeSoto Civic Center.

DECARO STEPS INTO THE RECORD BOOK

The CHL's Most Outstanding Goaltender John DeCaro re-wrote the CHL record book this season while posting a 27-6-3 record. The All-CHL goaltender set single season records with 11 shutouts (previous record was eight), a 1.63 goals against average (previous record was 1.80) and a .941 save percentage (previous record was .938). DeCaro and the Mudbugs will wait until the series with the Mississippi RiverKings and the Texas Brahmas conclude to see who their conference semi finals opponent will be.

YOUNGSTOWN MAKES EAGLES TAKE NOTICE HEADING INTO SERIES

The Youngstown SteelHounds and the Colorado Eagles will begin a best-of-seven conference semi finals series on Friday night at the Budweiser Events Center and momentum in the series may just belong to the Hounds. Youngstown is fresh off a three game sweep of the Eagles last week in the Chevy Centre and they won the season series by posting a 3-1-1 record. The one challenge the Hounds will have in the series is that they have never won in Colorado (0-8-1). The only time the Hounds have even earned a point in the BEC was in the last meeting on March 8th (a 4-3 Colorado shootout win). Youngstown went 10-1-1 in their final 12 games and goaltender Andy Franck went 8-0-1 in the month of March.

LEFT SCRATCHING THEIR HEAD

In the ultra-competitive Northern Conference, the Rocky Mountain Rage ended up the odd-team out despite a 36-22-6 record. The Rage carried a 24-5-3 but went 12-17-3 in the second half of the season. An injury to all-star Scott Wray seemed to be the downfall for the Rage who went 6-9-1 after Wray was placed in the IR. Wary had 61 points in 47 games prior to the injury.



Central Hockey League Stories from March 24, 2008


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