Finals Predictions

Two weeks ago, champion coach and Fox Sports commentator Paul Jaffa Watson said the 2017 AIHL Finals series had him “wound up like a top”.

“There’s a story to go with every Finals series, isn’t there? The buzz that will be the Docklands from midday onwards on that Saturday will be incredible. I look forward to it.

“I just know that hockey will be the winner. I really believe there will be some great hockey.”

The three-time Goodall Cup winning coach is not the only hockey tragic excited by this year’s finals series. Andrew Petrie, coach of reigning back-to-back champions the Newcastle North Stars, is analysing the match-ups, despite his team missing the big dance this season.

Brad Vigon, national men’s coach and former Melbourne Mustangs Goodall Cup winning boss, is also counting the sleeps until he gets to see the league’s best teams go head to head at O’Brien Group Arena.

And Perth Thunder general manager and former coach Stan Scott believes we’re in for the best finals series ever.

No matter how illustrious their records in hockey, these experts are like kids in a candy shop considering these match-ups.

It’s no wonder. In the past two Finals series: six games, all decided by one goal, three of them in overtime. Wall-to-wall thrillers.

This season, three of those teams return. Melbourne Ice, the dominant, deep squad of the regular season; Perth Thunder and CBR Brave, the perennial Finalists getting closer each season.

But, wait, there's more. The Ice’s arch-rival the Melbourne Mustangs return to the Finals, riding irresistible underdog momentum after an incredible in-season turnaround.

The 2017 AIHL Finals series promises bountiful storylines.

TEAM BY TEAM

MELBOURNE ICE

Record-breaking regular season juggernaut for the second season running, Ice is under unusual pressure. Since their famous Threepeat of Goodall Cup wins completed in 2012, they've made playoffs and stumbled. A bad day against upstart rink mate arch-rivals the Mustangs in the 2014 grand final; a heartbreaking penalty shot overtime loss in the 2015 decider; another overtime demise in the 2016 semi-final. 

Ice has no scorer in the top eight but a league-leading eight in the top 20 AIHL scorers, showing their incredible depth of forwards. Their defence is solid, if not quite as deep, and their goaltender is a proven Finals performer. They’re on home ice and well-supported, as always. The experts know they are good enough.

Can the league-leaders overcome their recent history of Finals upsets? Will this be the year they live up to their regular season form and take out their fourth championship?

‘Jaffa’ Watson 
One of MI weaknesses has been their mental toughness. Because the Finals are played on their home rink it’s like they’re coming to a normal weekend.

This year it’s different with their new coach Charles (Franzen), with his professionalism. And he’s got three deep lines which all can play in playoff hockey. I think that will stand them in good stead to fight through the barrier if things aren’t going right.

Brad Vigon 
I think Charles is in a tough situation because he’s supposed to win. Anything less than that… He’s not in an enviable position.

‘Jaffa’ Watson
He understands three or five game finals series from back home. To that end, it will be a new experience for him.

But Charles has sought counsel on that. He’s got an understanding of the AIHL culture from travelling around. 

They’ll be well aware of the badge that they’re wearing as the tall poppy. They’re the favourite and that brings added pressure. But every game they play is a huge game and the crowds come and they are used to that.

Andrew Petrie
The Melbourne Ice have assembled a deep roster and they have been consistent and ruthless all year long. They are well-drilled and they have three forward lines who each present a consistent scoring threat. 

If you can't find ways to disrupt their possession game, you're in for a long night. If you want to beat them, you have to take a high-risk approach and be ultra-aggressive on the forecheck to put their defence under pressure and force in-zone turnovers.

‘Jaffa’ Watson
If Ice has a weakness on the ice, it’s in their defence. There are three who stand tall, then it falls away to being serviceable.

Brad Vigon
Melbourne Ice is the strongest team I’ve ever seen in the AIHL, especially from a depth perspective. With the addition of Dayne Davis in goal, Army (Matt Armstrong) and Bacsie (Jason Baclig) getting their residency and the addition of Scott Corbett, they’ve kind of got an embarrassment of riches. 

Ice has three lines that come at you and score, they almost have four lines that can score. I think for them it’s about coming with their A-game.

‘Jaffa’ Watson
You’ve seen one line fire in a game… but if all the three lines fire…

Ice has an even spread and run three lines deep. The other teams will play two-line hockey but Ice will keep coming at them.

FINALS WORDS

‘Jaffa’ Watson
They’ve fought back in games this year when they’ve had a slow start. And that’s the key. Melbourne Ice has been traditionally slow to start in Finals. They’ve got to be on from the first drop of the puck.

They have tended to wait and watch to see what the style and speed of the other teams is and I don’t know why.

They should just take it to them.

#21 Joey Hughes battles for the puck

PERTH THUNDER

Well respected, well-run and consistently competitive, Thunder made Finals in 2013, just their second season. They’ve been within a goal of a grand final in the past two seasons, eventual champs the North Stars denying them in overtime last year. They're built around a core of impressive local defencemen, marshalled by 23-year-old skipper Jamie Woodman, and a stellar first import line of forwards, Benjamin Breault, Jessyko Bernard and Christian Ouellet, who combined for well over 100 points in the regular season. Stan Scott also recruited wisely in net, with Peter Di Salvo shaping as the league’s best goalie, his save percentage over .920 all season.

The speedy, organised Thunder defeated Brave in each of their four meetings this season, and have taken games off the Ice (in Melbourne) and the Mustangs. They are good, and they are ready.

Andrew Petrie
The Perth Thunder have genuine speed and they play a high-tempo game. With great respect to all other teams and every other import in the league, Perth has the best line in the game. The Breault, Ouellet, Bernard line is something special. These guys have a sixth-sense about where each other is and what they are about to do.

Di Salvo is an exceptional goalie and he can steal games for them, occasionally even when giving up 40-plus shots. 

Perth builds a team each season that relies on their imports to get it done. The reality is they will need huge back-to-back performances out of all four of these guys if they are to raise the cup.

Brad Vigon 
The team that is probably the most dangerous team in this Finals is Perth. They can score – that one (import) line, they’ll score a minimum of three goals. And, Peter Di Salvo can shut you down. 

They’ve got very good local defence; you’ve got Per Daniel Goransson, Jamie Woodman, Rob Hasselhurst and Simon Kudla.

You know their import line is going to be hard to keep off the board and they’ve got decent depth with their locals.

‘Jaffa’ Watson
When there’s a transition, Perth control that neutral zone and they come back and they have a wall and you’re forced wide. You might not have the skill sets of an import defence but you’ve got the knowledge to keep them out of the corridor, out of the middle. And I do think that’s one of their strengths.

Andrew Petrie
The Thunder D-corps is really solid and goalie Peter Di Salvo is a bit like pizza; even when he's bad, he's still pretty good.

FINALS WORDS

‘Jaffa’ Watson 
Their offence is strong on that import line and over-reliance on that is their weakness. But they’ll rotate one of those players to the second line to give it strength.

I’ve been an admirer of Stan since we did a coaching course in the year 2000 when I first met him and we’ve been friends ever since.

I just think what he and the organisation have done over the years is to be applauded and they’ve modelled themselves well.

They’re not second because they fell into the position. I think they’re a worthy contender. I think it would be fantastic for the league if they could win it.

CBR BRAVE

Canberra always loved hockey, and when the Knights exited the competition before the 2014 season, it’s little wonder there was a passionate reaction. But it was amazing that the resurrected team - CBR Brave - not only formed almost overnight, but crashed into the Finals in its first season. Impressively, Brave has refused to settle for a feel-good cameo. Aggressive recruiting has continued their rise and they have become a perennial Finalist. 

In 2015, the eventual champions Newcastle had to rally from 1-3 down to topple Brave 4-3 in a semi-final. In 2016, they upset heavy favourites Melbourne Ice in overtime and fell only a goal short of lifting the cup in the grand final.

In 2017, they own seven of the league's top 20 point-scorers. Alongside power forwards Geordie Wudrick and Stephen Blunden are Australia’s best young forward, Wehebe Darge, formerly of Adelaide, and former Newcastle great Brian Bales.

Their defence is hardly deficient – one of those high scorers, Dominic Jalbert, plays back, as does star D-man Jan Safar and stalwarts Matt Harvey and Mark Rummukainen.

Brave has endured an injury blight this season, which means their best line-up is only coming together in time for the Finals.

Brave possess many players from other AIHL clubs, so they are sometimes considered something of a foreign legion. But to the league’s most boisterous fans, any player wearing the Brave jersey is a beloved hero on a sacred mission to win that elusive first AIHL title. The club has committed to do whatever it takes to lift the cup. There are few reasons to believe it can’t happen this year.

Andrew Petrie
The CBR Brave look unbeatable on paper, and they’re certainly tough to handle on the ice too. Their roster boasts three of the most prolific point-scoring imports in AIHL history in Brian Bales, Geordie Wudrick and Jan Safar along with original CBR phenom Stephen Blunden and current blue-line stand-out, Dominic Jalbert. 

When you add to this list elite Australian player Wehebe Darge and up-and-coming brothers Casey and Tyler Kubara, then the CBR Brave have every right to expect a big bang for their buck.

Brad Vigon
The Brave is a scary team as well, they’ve got so much scoring power.

To me, their weakness has got to be their goaltending. It’s just not up there with Kruger and Di Salvo – those are guys that will steal you games. I’m not sure Brave is in a position to do that.

‘Jaffa’ Watson
They have so much firepower. They’re loaded, but their goaltending lets them down.

The stats prove that with (goalie) Aleksi Toivonen.

But you look at those names and you’d have them in any team. Wudrick brings power in spades and he brings the best out of Bales and Blunden. Blunden is a person everyone likes to dislike but he can play some serious hockey and he reads Wudrick well.

As a combination, they’re incredibly strong but I think it falls away after those gentlemen.

And that’s one area where I think Perth can challenge Brave as they run pretty deep.

FINALS WORDS

Andrew Petrie
This roster should never struggle to score goals, but I think it was Sir Alex Ferguson who said ‘attack wins you games and defence wins you titles’, and this is where the Brave could come unstuck. All three of the other Finalists are committed to systems defence and have proven big-game goaltending. 

They will be thinking they need to score four or more goals to give themselves a chance of winning and they have the firepower to do so.

But I think for CBR to win twice this weekend they will need to do so in at least one high-scoring game and hope for a performance out of young goaltender Aleksi Toivonen akin to the big game he had in last year’s grand final.

AIHL leading point scorer #36 Ben Breault looking for the outlet pass

MELBOURNE MUSTANGS

Birthed in 2011, the Mustangs suffered a difficult infancy and they were dominated by rink-mates the Melbourne Ice until 2014. In that astonishing season, the young Stangs went from promising to powerful, putting together a season for the ages. It felt almost fated that their coming-of-age would feature Ice, though no-one thought it would come so soon, in a grand final, and that the upstart underdogs would thrash the establishment heavyweight 6-1. 

After that triumph, it appeared the Mustangs preferred to hunt than to be the hunted. They fell away in subsequent seasons and began 2017 in underwhelming fashion, seemingly destined for the bottom of the standings.

But the employment of an elite import goalie and the gelling of an underestimated squad has produced a second Mustangs fairy tale. They return to the Finals an opponent no team will relish, comfortable in their favoured underdog status, yet bearing the confidence of a former champion and once again playing with pace and spirit.

On the ice, the revival has many facets. Import goalie James Kruger made a huge, immediate impact; feisty young local Mitch Humphries jumped ship mid-season from Ice, deepening the forward ranks; imports Matt Beattie and Anton Kokkonen became more productive the longer the season went; fan favourite Pat O’Kane returned to his pacy best; championship-winning defenceman Troy Robertson returned to add depth and surety; and most of all, pugnacious local forward Jamie Bourke put up a career-best season, leading all Australian point-scorers.

A rabble in May, when they had one win from six games and were beaten 9-0 by Ice, the Mustangs rallied, mostly away from home. At one stage, they won seven out of ten games on the road, taking 23 of a possible 30 points. 

Brad Vigon
I think that the Mustangs seem to play best when they have an underdog mentality.

‘Jaffa’ Watson
The defining element about the Mustangs?

Attitude. For me, it sticks out; it’s attitude. They’ve got it in spades and they’ll bring it to the Finals.

They’ve got nothing to lose. Everything is a bonus and they can’t believe how they’ve turned it around.

Brad Vigon
They’ve got very good goaltending and they’ve got some firepower. Jamie Bourke is having a blinder of a season and I think he is their ace in the hole.

Troy Robertson is a huge addition for them. He’s not fully fit but he’s their best local defenceman.

Andrew Petrie
Everything else being equal, I think the coaching staff will play a huge part in the Mustangs chances this weekend. Is (local goalie) Fraser Carson ready now? If so, do they play all four import skaters? (Only four imports can play in any one game.) Fraser is proven at this level. He's won a cup, he's played for his country.

Or do they sit a skater and rely on the type of big game goalie James Kruger has shown he can deliver? I'd hate to be making these calls but if they get it right it could see them raise the Goodall Cup again. These guys are my 'dark horse' for this weekend.

Brad Vigon
They’ve got five imports: who do you sit? It’s a very, very difficult decision for Flatsy (coach Michael Flaherty). I don’t envy him being in that position either.

Anton Kokkonen is shooting the lights out right now, Pat O’Kane is having a very good season as well. Defenceman Matt Beattie, you can’t take him out of the line-up – their defence is way too vulnerable. So it’s going to be out of the three imports forwards there who misses out.

‘Jaffa’ Watson
I’m thinking the first semi-final will be an absolute threat to Ice if the Mustangs play them because of what the Mustangs bring in. That aggressive attitude, and being the derby team and bringing all it does between the two Melbourne teams.

Brad Vigon
I think the Melbourne Ice don’t really like playing the Mustangs because, to them, derbies are the be all and end all. Someone once said the Mustangs would rather beat Ice than win the championship and I don’t think that’s too far from the truth.

The Melbourne Ice should beat the Mustangs on paper. But I think the edge in goaltending goes to the Mustangs. Kruger is a pro in pro shape. I think all the teams are pretty strong, they can all score goals, but I give the overall edge in goaltending to Perth, followed by the Mustangs very, very closely.

I think that the first two lines of the MM are not bad either. 

For some reason, in these rivalries, you just never know what’s going to happen.

‘Jaffa’ Watson
If we’re talking regular season they don’t run deep, but in Finals they’ll shorten the bench and get around it by playing two lines. But I think they don’t have the depth in defence to cover in the third period.

Brad Vigon
I think their defence is not as strong as you’d like it to be. Luckily they’ve got some pretty solid goaltending and they can score.

FINALS WORDS

Brad Vigon
I would say Flatsy has done an absolutely amazing job. He’s had to get by with little, started out horribly and everybody was calling for his head and now look: he’s got them into the Finals with not much depth.

Melbourne Mustangs forward #16 Maxime Langelier-Parent screens CBR Brave goalie #35 Aleksi Toivonen in regular season action

KEY PLAYERS

MELBOURNE ICE

Andrew Petrie
Undoubtedly goalie Dayne Davis. He's certainly a proven commodity. (He won two titles with the North Stars and was MVP in one.) It's impressive the season Dayne has managed, given the amount of travel he has undertaken, compounded by a demanding job and a growing family. If the Ice wants to win the cup, Dayne will have to play two strong games.

Brad Vigon
Scott Corbett might be a guy. He’s an import quality player even though he’s a bit older (39) and he hasn’t played in a while. He had three points in his first game (versus CBR, August 12). That’s a pretty good guy to be adding into their line-up late in the season.

‘Jaffa’ Watson
I think Joey Hughes will play the Finals of his life. He’s enjoying hockey, he’s balanced in work, life and hockey, the family is good. He couldn’t be in a better place. He’s matured and he’s told me he wants to be on the ice for every shift and he’s playing every shift as if it’s his last.

Stan Scott
Joey Hughes, he has wound back the clock. When Joey is on, the Ice are very tough to play against. Joey makes things happen.

PERTH THUNDER

Andrew Petrie
The French Connection (Christian Ouellet, Benjamin Breault and Jessyko Bernard). In tight games for the Thunder this year they have relied on offensive output from this trio. In full flight, they're a joy to watch. They will need to be at their very best if Perth expects to hoist the Goodall Cup.

‘Jaffa’ Watson
Christian Ouellet. He reads the play better than the other two imports and the best of him is his work off the puck. All of a sudden he’s the option, he’s in the right spot.

Stan Scott
The most important player for Thunder is Peter ‘Mad Dog’ Di Salvo. He is a great motivator and competitor. He leads by example and when he is on, he’s the best net-minder in the AIHL.

CBR BRAVE

Andrew Petrie 
I don’t think it will come down to a player for CBR this year. I think the most important issue for them will be defensive structure and commitment. It's clear this team enters the playoff weekend with the least reliable goaltending and it will be up to coach Starke to ensure his guys buy-in defensively. 

Stan Scott
CBR Brave have a team full of gunslingers; scoring is no problem. They are amazing to watch. Aleksi Toivonen needs a big night in net for them to win the Finals.

‘Jaffa’ Watson
Geordie Wudrick, he’s just magnificent. A scoring powerhouse.

MELBOURNE MUSTANGS

Brad Vigon
The wildcard here could be Maxime Langelier- Parent. Some of the (import) guys don’t bring their A-Game until it matters. Max has been solid but I just think there’s a whole other level he can go to. 

He’s got a pretty good history, he’s played at a pretty darned high level and I don’t think we’ve seen his best hockey.

‘Jaffa’ Watson
Max Parent. Followed very closely by Jamie Bourke, the little Aussie pest. I’ve got a lot of time for him. I’ve always admired the fact that he’s five foot five and punches above his weight and he doesn’t care who you are. He can rattle the cage.

Stan Scott
The Mustangs are all Jamie Bourke, the most talented Australian player in the AIHL. They have a solid goalie now and good depth but when Jamie is on fire, he has the X Factor.