Memorial Cup is the London Knights’ to Lose

We are roughly three-quarters through the Memorial Cup round-robin play and two things are very clear, 1. The London Knights are ridiculously good, and, 2. Everything else looks like a crap-shoot.

So far in the two games they have played, the London Knights have outscored their two opponents by a combined score of 15-3 and have at least one player topping every offensive and defensive category. With offesively skilled players like Toronto Maple Leafs draft pick Mitchell Marner and draft prospect Matthew Tkachuk, it is very clear that the Knights are definitely the team to beat in this year’s Memorial Cup. Their toughest game will be tonight as they play the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies who have also been a tough team.

This is my reasoning for saying everything else in this year's Memorial Cup is a crap-shoot. During the Western Hockey League playoffs, the Brandon Wheat Kings beat the Red Deer Rebels in the Eastern Conference final, albeit it was a very close series and took them six games. Then on Saturday night the Wheat Kings got pounded by the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies. I say pounded because it was a 5-1 game until about mid-way through the 3rd period. Well on Sunday night the host Red Deer Rebels gave the Huskies a taste of their own medicine. The Rebels fell behind early 2-0 but then lit it up and scored five unanswered goals to hand the Huskies a 5-2 loss.

Despite the lopsided scores, the games have been very entertaining with some great highlight reel goals, and a lot of heated battles mixed with a lot of hitting and even some fighting. The London Knights and the Red Deer Rebels have both clinched a spot in the playoff round.

As mentioned, tonight the 2-0 London Knights face-off against the 1-1 Rouyn-Noranda Huskies. Then tomorrow the 1-1 Red Deer Rebels play the 0-2 Brandon Wheat Kings to close out the round-robin portion of the tournament. A tie-breaker game will be played on Thursday if necessary.

For more information and coverage visit the Mastercard Memorial Cup website.

by BizzleJ