ORLANDO, Fla. – When the Southern Professional Hockey League crowns its 2009-2010 President’s Cup playoff champions some time in the next ten days, long time fans can be forgiven if they feel a bit strange. Each of the past two seasons and in three of the first five years of the league, the trophy has resided in Knoxville with the Ice Bears. It has also made stops in Columbus (year one) and Fayetteville (year three).
This time around, the trophy will get to travel to a brand new locale with either rockets or beaches as a backdrop.
Starting Wednesday night, the Mississippi Surge and the Huntsville Havoc will do 
battle in a best-of-five series for the right to call the President’s Cup theirs. It will be a new experience for both franchises as the expansion Surge are new to the league while the Havoc are making their first appearance, the last of the SPHL’s “Original Four” to arrive in the finals.
Mississippi and Huntsville met eight times during the regular season with the Surge taking seven of those contests. Each of the first three games were decided in overtime – all won by Mississippi – while the final meeting went to the Surge in a shootout. The lone Huntsville victory came on January 9th as the Havoc prevailed 3-2. All told in the eight games, Mississippi outscored Huntsville 30-20.
“If you look at all of the games, they’re all pretty tight, especially the ones right at the beginning. One goal games, overtime games, that’s what playoff hockey is,” Huntsville coach Randy Murphy said. “We’re just expecting much of the same. They’re (Mississippi) obviously a great team. All we’re trying to do is to make sure that we keep playing like we’re playing. If we can maintain the way we’re playing right now, we’re going to at least give ourselves a chance.”
The way the Havoc are playing right now, a chance can easily turn into something bigger. After losing the first game of the first round to Pensacola, Huntsville has rolled off four consecutive wins, including road victories in Pensacola and Knoxville. As if closing out the series in Knoxville wasn’t enough, Huntsville held the Ice Bears’ big line of Kevin Swider, Tim Vitek and Bobby Joe Pelkey in check
The only thing that hasn’t seemed to work in the post-season is the Havoc power play which went 5-for-36 (13.89 percent) in the first two rounds as opposed to a 17.48 percent success rate in the regular season. Murphy was quick to point out that the numbers can be deceiving.
“We’ve sort of ridden that road all year long where we’ve had a little bit of inconsistency with our power play but at the same time I think the good thing about that is that we’ve scored timely goals on our power play and that’s what the playoffs are all about are timely goals,” Murphy said. “Would I like to see the percentages higher? For sure I would on the power play but in the playoffs with the series as short as they are, you have to kind of just rely less on statistics in terms of percentages and more on the timing of some things. If you get caught up in your numbers in the playoffs, you could lose sight of what’s really important and put added pressure on guys that is somewhat unnecessary because there’s enough pressure in the playoffs as it is.”
During the regular season, Huntsville’s best offensive threats against Mississippi were the guys everyone would expect. Justin Rohr (3 goals-6 assists-9 points), Chris Myers (4-2-6) and Mike MacDonald (3-3-6)
Huntsville forward Travis Kauffeldt (photo courtesy of Huntsville Havoc)
The biggest factor for the Havoc may be goalie Dan McWhinney. McWhinney posted a pedestrian 1-2-2 record against the Surge with a 3.24 goals against average. Since being named by Murphy as Huntsville’s number one at the start of the post-season, he is 4-1 with a better-than-stingy 1.94 goals against. He saved his best work for the Knoxville series, shutting down the Ice Bears to just two goals in two games.
When asked about the match-up between McWhinney and Huntsville’s Bill Zaniboni, Murphy lauded both net minders. He also suggested that each team will utilize the same strategy to try to beat the other’s goalie.
“Both guys have obviously stepped up. Look at their numbers. Dan’s done a fabulous job for us. His goals against per game is below two and he’s got the second highest save percentage (.937) in the league right now behind (Fayetteville’s Guy) St. Vincent there. He’s played all the games too,” Murphy said. “Zaniboni’s good. He’s tough to beat. You’ve got to do certain things in order to beat him. If he can see the puck, he’s going to stop it. I’m sure they know the same thing about Dan. It’s no secret. I know the way their team plays. They’re going to be hard-nosed and create traffic in front of our guy and it’s going to be the same thing reciprocated (at their end). It’s just a matter of who executes is going to be the difference maker.”
As for keys to success, Murphy said that beyond the usual suspects of playing physical and being better in all facets of the game, the intangibles need to be on the Havoc’s side if they are to win.
“They’ve got a lot of skilled guys. We’ve got to take a lot of time and space away from their skilled guys,” he said. “No real secrets. No real earth-shattering coaching philosophies. At this time of year, they go out the window. It’s the want-to of your team and how badly they want it and how willing they are to commit to being disciplined, staying out of the (penalty) box and executing our systems. The team that can do that the best for three consecutive game or three out of the five games will be victorious. It’s up to them (players) and every indication shows me that they’re willing to commit to the things we’ve put in place.”
If the Havoc are looking for a just a chance in order to win the President’s Cup, the Surge may just have enough ways to close the door shut and lock it. The regular season champions drew sixth place Columbus for a best-of-five semifinal series with the winner going straight to the finals. Despite an overtime loss in Game 2, Mississippi never really seemed in danger as they cleaned up the series in four games.
Much like Huntsville, the Surge’s power play was not as effective in the series against Columbus as it was during the regular season. Led by Matt Zultek’s SPHL-record 31 power play goals, Mississippi was successful on 22.38 percent of its chances (96-for-429) in season as compared to 10.34 percent (3-for-29) against the Cottonmouths.
Mississippi coach Steffon Walby said that there were plenty of positive, and negative, things that he could see in the Columbus series that were points of focus heading into the finals.
“The two or three things that I think stick out are one, as a positive, we figured out how to play and win hockey games five-on-five. I thought that we were physical, no where near as physical as Columbus was but at the same time physical enough to keep it balanced,” Walby said. “I think a negative we need to work on is our specialty teams, the PK (penalty kill) first and the power play second, the ones that got us the regular season championship. Another negative is that we’ve got to be better as far as keeping our discipline, not letting little things get under our skin.”
Walby’s reference to discipline is a nod to the fact that he will be without defenseman Ryan Bartle for Game 1. Bartle was suspended for that game as a result of his hit on Columbus’ Sam Bowles in game four of that series, a hit that left Bowles with a head laceration after hitting the glass. The league reviewed the hit and found that although the hit was deemed “clean” as far as intent, it was found to be a bit high and the injury to Bowles could not be discounted.
During the regular season, Tim Velemirovich led the Surge in scoring against the Havoc, potting three goals and adding nine assists for a total of 12 points.
Mississippi forward Michael Richard (photo courtesy of Mississippi Surge)
Zaniboni, the SPHL’s Goaltender of the Year, anchors a defense that was stingy all season. Thus far in the playoffs, Zaniboni has a 2.55 goals against average over the four games against Columbus. As his counterpart noted, how the net minders play could very well be the best individual battle within the larger war.
“You’ve got the (top) goaltender of the league (Zaniboni) and then you have probably the goaltender that has something to prove to everybody the most (McWhinney). Right now because of the numbers, you’d have to give it to Dan McWhinney but at the same time I also think that the teams that Dan played and the buildings that he had to play in were a lot tougher so Dan’s probably riding a pretty good high right now,” Walby said.
“We only had to play one team but at the same time it was a big hurdle. Bill saw a lot of traffic, he saw a lot of bodies in his crease. He had to see the puck through all those bodies. I don’t know how he could see it sometimes. The goaltending battle is going to be the story inside the story. I don’t know if Huntsville had to face a hot goalie like we had to face with (Columbus’ Ian) Vigier but at the same time, they know what they are up against and it’s going to be the law of percentages – the more pucks to the net the better off the outcome.”
With both teams averaging around seven power play opportunities per game in the playoffs, the game officials could have as much pressure on them as the teams. Walby said that although his team has flourished with the man advantage, he hopes that the four-man crew of officials will let the teams decide the final result.
“The first thing I would say is that I hope the officiating doesn’t affect the outcome of the series. I don’t think that’s what the officiating crew wants to do. They want to see good physical, good flowing hockey that they don’t have to interrupt by calling infractions. At the same time, we’re going to a four referee system. It is going to get the behind-the-play action,” he said. “We match up fairly well. If we match up with speed on speed and physical on physical, it should be just that – fast skating, good competitive hockey, finals hockey. I wouldn’t suggest that there would be more penalties. There might even be less because we’re more of the same team (style-wise) than different.”
Asked about keys to winning the series, Walby identified three specific areas that his Surge team needs to excel in.
“I think the three keys are one, we have to match their speed. Number two is that we have to seize the moment and realize that we are an expansion team that is fortunate enough to be there. We also have to realize that it’s not going to take sixty minutes (of play). It’s going to take 180 minutes to be champions or maybe even more,” he said.
“The last thing is that we have to keep our emotions in check. Huntsville is a very disciplined team. They’ve got what I thought was the second best coach in the league (Murphy) doing a great job plus they’ve got a great ownership group and fan base to spur them on. We’re going to have to put ourselves in the underdog role because we’re only an expansion first year team trying to finish something off, not a sixth-year team in this league.”
Editor’s pick: There is no doubt that this finals series will be dominated by special teams. During the playoffs, Mississippi averaged just over seven power play opportunities per game as did Huntsville. If the same numbers hold true in the finals, the pace of play will be slow and choppy, which could play into Huntsville’s hands. If the number of power plays is down, creating more even strength play or is tipped in favor of Mississippi, the Surge have a big advantage. Zaniboni and McWhinney in the nets could be an entertaining match-up with no clear edge the way both are playing right now. Man for man, Mississippi has a much better proportioned offense which is why the Surge will complete the double and unite the Coffey Trophy and the President’s Cup on the beach in four games.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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