By Sean Evans (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: March 21, 2012
With 11 games remaining in the regular season, the Heat, once poised to take first or second place in the Western Conference of the AHL, are in a fight for a spot in the playoffs. With just a few weeks of the regular season left to play, the Heat have seen victories come few and far between.
In their last eight games, the Heat have won two, lost four and lost one in a shoot-out. The points that they failed to earn during the last third of the season may come back to haunt them, as there are just four points separating 10th place and third place in the Western Conference. Like the NHL, the AHL playoff cutoff is eighth place. Currently, the Heat find themselves sitting in sixth place, with only three points separating them and 10th spot – the team in 10th, the San Antonio Rampage, also has two games in hand. It will be a fight to the finish for the Abbotsford Heat.
Generally speaking, good hockey teams do two things: score lots, and don’t allow many goals. Right now the Heat are doing the complete opposite. In their last 10 games, the Heat have allowed 30 goals and scored only 23. The lack of solid goaltending falls on the shoulders of both Danny Taylor and Leland Irving, as the two have largely shared the role – with Irving rotating between the Heat and the Calgary Flames. All that said, aside from a couple of unfortunate outings, the goaltending has not been terrible – not great, but not terrible.
The lack of scoring, however, has been the primary concern for the Heat during the latter half of this season. As it stands, the top scorer for the Heat this season, Krys Kolanos, has 19 goals in 38 games played. Ben Walter, who leads the team in points, has 44 points in 65 games. These numbers are simply not good enough to win games. All AHL teams have to deal with the fact that star-players will be called up to the big leagues, but it seems that the Heat have had to face the loss of key players far too often.
On March 5, the Flames recalled three key Heat forwards: Guillaume Desbien, Krys Kolanos and Greg Nemisz. Although Kolanos returned to Abbotsford a week later, Desbien and Nemisz are still missing from the Abbotsford roster. Again, all AHL teams have to deal with this frustration, but the Heat, a team that struggles offensively, have desperately missed having a consistent line-up of forwards that can score.
Indeed, the Heat will need some players to step up to the plate with just a handful of games remaining for them to seal up what could be their second ever post-season appearance. One player who may help with the offensive touch is Hugh Jessiman, who joined the Heat mid-February. In his 16 games with the Heat, he has four goals and five assists. Although not amazing numbers, Jessiman scored 20 goals and notched five assists in his 43 games with the Lake Erie Monsters earlier this season. Perhaps some of that offensive finesse will show up in Abbotsford – and hopefully soon, if their hopes of a playoff berth are to be realized.
