The Pacific Division race heats up

STOCKTON, Calif. – This is it. The final week of the season is here and the Bakersfield Condors are currently leading the race to clinch the Pacific Division. It is a tight contest; the Stockton Thunder are only two points back, with Las Vegas and Ontario within striking distance, trailing at three and five points respectively. If the season ended this morning, then Ontario would be the odd team out of the playoffs.
 
The Condors have only four games left in regulation and of those, two are against the Thunder, while the final two games will be at home against the Idaho Steelheads.   The Thunder has only four games remaining as well, and will face the Alaska Aces on the road for their final two match ups.
 
Both the Wranglers and the Reign have three games remaining against each other, all in Las Vegas.  
 
The race to the finish means that the team with the lowest number of points in the National Conference is out of the playoffs.   The Steelheads clinched the Western Division on March 12, as well as the Brabham Cup with the most points in the Conference.   The other division teams, Alaska, Utah and Victoria have 74, 73, 72, respectively to date.   The point spread in the conference overall is still nearly too close to call.   If a team has a last minute losing streak, they could potentially be left out of the playoffs, with only four ( Alaska) or three ( Utah and Victoria) games remaining.
 
The Condors will face the Thunder at home tonight, and then both teams travel tomorrow to Stockton for another meeting.   Bakersfield leads the season head-to-head series, 5-3-2. A single point tonight by Bakersfield at home will clinch a playoff birth. But the division lead is still open.
 
The Condors have ten active roster players with 20 points or more.   Their primary goal tender, Timo Pielmeier has been racking up some records of his own of late.   Pielmeier has 3,009 minutes in the net to date, second overall in the league and has a record of 3.31 goals against average, with .882 save percentage. His record is 21-24-4-1. Last weekend, Pielmeier broke the Condors record for points by goaltender, with a goal and three assists to date.
 
The Thunder currently has the leagues best power play on the road at 24.5 percent.   Their primary net minder, Andrew Perugini (21-15-1-1) is fourth in the league with 2.95 goals against average and a .909 save percentage, with three shutouts.   Stockton has 12 active roster players with 20 points or greater to date, five of them have more than twenty goals.
 
Bakersfield will be at home to play their final two games against the National Conference leader, Idaho.   The Steelheads are 4-1 against the Condors this season, while the Condors are 3-7 in their last ten games.
 
Las Vegas is 8-0-1-2 against the Reign this season, so the writing could be on the wall for Ontario, since the remaining three games head-to-head are in Las Vegas.
 
The Wranglers have eleven players with 20 or more points, the Reign have 12. Las Vegas’ goalie Jimmy Spratt (7-3-1-1), with a single shutout, has 3.00 goals against average, with a .911 save percentage.   Spratt was recently signed by the Wranglers and has only appeared in 13 games, due to an injury to Michael Ouzas and the call-up of Joel Gistedt.   Curtis Darling has been the primary net minder for Ontario, playing the bulk of the games with 59. Darling is currently 21-23-2-5, with three shutouts, has 2.85 goals against average with .908 save percentage.
 
For their last two games, Stockton is 5-0-1-2 against the Aces, but they’ve been struggling on the road with a record of 4-4-0-2 in their last ten road games.   Alaska has been hot and recently had a ten game regulation win streak snapped over the weekend by Ontario.
 
The race is too close to call, but it will only be a matter of a few short days until the playoff teams and opponents are set.   Get your playoff tickets, because it’s bound to be exciting!
 
Contact the writer at Shellie.Lima@prohockeynews.com  
Contact the photographer at Jack.Lima@prohockeynews.com