2024 Western Conference Finals vs London Knights

[donjohnson]

Ask and you shall receive!

The Spirit survive an absolute battle against the Soo and our reward is everyone's favorite team to hate the vaunted London Knights. London is 8-0 in the playoffs and while they're the only undefeated team, they have not looked 100% dominant as 6 of their 8 games have essentially been 1-score games.

The Spirit split the season series 2-2 against the knights but everyone has that 4th game shellacking in our heads. As great as Michael Simpson is in goal, I'm really glad to be seeing someone other than Schenkel because he was an absolute beast in goal for 7 games.

As chippy and physical as the series was with the Soo, London is a much more physical team and they have a bigger opportunity to goon it up if things go south so the Spirit need to be prepared for that.

On the Spirit end, it was nice to see Zayne and Oke out for the handshake line and it will be interesting to see when they are able to return. I think it's Lalonde's net for at least the start of the series but with a quick turnaround on Sunday and Monday I'd love to see Oke back in the net at home in Game 3 to give Lalonde a break and get him back in game shape. I'm guessing Guo will be out for most (if not all) of the series but hopefully he'll be back for the finals or memorial cup.

This team showed a lot of resilience after losses this series and played a FANTASTIC team game last night... I honestly have no predictions other than I hope we see the team from last night the rest of the way.

[aj0512]

Series Schedule

(1) London Knights vs. (2) Saginaw Spirit

Game 1 - Friday, April 26 at London, 7:00 p.m.
Game 2 - Sunday, April 28 at London, 2:00 p.m.
Game 3 - Monday, April 29 at Saginaw, 7:05 p.m.
Game 4 - Wednesday, May 1 at Saginaw, 7:05 p.m.
*Game 5 - Friday, May 3 at London, 7:00 p.m.
*Game 6 - Sunday, May 5 at Saginaw, 2:00 p.m.
*Game 7 - Monday, May 6 at London, 7:00 p.m.

* = If Necessary

Speaking of suspensions, worth nothing that London overage forward Kaleb Lawrence is currently serving a 5-game suspension and won't be eligible until Game 5 of the series.

At this point I'd say Lalonde has earned the net to start the series. I have no inside info and have no idea what Oke is dealing with, but if he's close to a return, maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing to have for those back-to-back games.

[katokaelin]

Lalonde has played extremely well. One of those breakaways goes in last night, the Spirit would be setting up tee times today instead of getting ready for London.

Will need Parekhs offense vs London. Hopefully he can come back at some point.

Go Spirit!

[MidlandSpiritFan]

Saginaw power play better get healthy really quick. A 10% (3 for 30) performance like they had against Sault Ste Marie isn’t going to get it done against London. James Guo’s suspension is still listed as indefinite as of 10:30 am Thursday morning.

[aj0512]

From an MLive article today:

"Spirit goaltender Andrew Oke and star defenseman Zayne Parekh are expected to recover from injuries in time to play in the series. Lazary said the chances are extremely high they would play at some point in the series."

www.mlive.com/sports/saginaw-bay-city/2024/04/saginaw-spirit-lean-on-veterans-heading-into-ohl-showdown.html

[kingpin794]

Well that's good they'll be back at some point but that sounds like not for game 1 (or 2 in all likelyhood).

[ricardo]

Apr 25, 2024 10:42:18 GMT -5 aj0512 said:

From an MLive article today:

"Spirit goaltender Andrew Oke and star defenseman Zayne Parekh are expected to recover from injuries in time to play in the series. Lazary said the chances are extremely high they would play at some point in the series."

www.mlive.com/sports/saginaw-bay-city/2024/04/saginaw-spirit-lean-on-veterans-heading-into-ohl-showdown.html

Here's a link to the entire news article.

www.mlive.com/sports/saginaw-bay-city/2024/04/saginaw-spirit-lean-on-veterans-heading-into-ohl-showdown.html?outputType=amp

[donjohnson]

No Zayne and no Oke in the lineup tonight...hope we can get Glavin and Forgione on the ice some tonight, the other 4 need to get a breather if they want to make it through this series.

[MidlandSpiritFan]

Apr 26, 2024 14:52:06 GMT -5 donjohnson said:

No Zayne and no Oke in the lineup tonight...hope we can get Glavin and Forgione on the ice some tonight, the other 4 need to get a breather if they want to make it through this series.

The other scratches are Guo (suspension), Moore, and Storch. Guo’s suspension is still listed as Indefinite.

[donjohnson]

Also, I'm really surprised that we don't know what Guo's suspension is...I think it will be long but I'm surprised they haven't quantified it yet. I wonder if that means he's done for the season.

[swoopster]

Is there the possibility that Dionicio will be suspended for game 2?   I thought it was a call at the end of play ( tossing his broken stick as seen in the OHL game video). He had an additional altercation with the ref at the scorers table... so we will see.

[swoopster]

On the OHL scorers sheet it is listed an misconduct 39.4 (OHL Rulebook) Misc abuse of an offical. The problem is this... 39.5 VI

Any player, Coach or non-playing person who throws or shoots any
equipment or other object in the general direction of an official but
does not come close to making any contact. This action may occur
on or off the ice

Do we not remember a cetain former goalie hitting baseballing a puck?

[swoopster]

now it appears no suspension. I HAVE NO CLUE HOW THE OHL OPERATES!!! Then why even bother with the 10 minute misconduct penalty?

[spiritfan8]

The same reason they give out 2’s at 20 minutes. Because it happened. As I said earlier, he didnt get a game or a match—I didnt think he’d be suspended, altho I have no argument with your assessment of OHL management in general.

[Bthumme]

We need our big guys to step up and make a noticeable appearance - bloom, beck, christo, sapovaliv - and parekh (if he plays) - we've been holding down the fort without offense from them. We traded for them for a reason, and if we want a shot at winning, they are going to have to contribute on the scoresheet.