Hurricanes This Week

Another week is in the books in the WHL and the Lethbridge Hurricanes struggles for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference continued.

The Canes' ended a six game losing streak after pulling off a 6-2 victory over Regina on Wednesday, but followed that up with a 7-2 to Prince George and a 3-0 loss to the Red Deer Rebels on the weekend. Lethbridge remains two points out the final playoff spot in the Conference with 15 games to go in the regular season. For the first time in a long time, the Hurricanes have 6 days off between games. They've been playing a lot of 4 games in 5 nights and 3 games in 4 nights since mid-January. They don't play again until this Friday when they travel to Red Deer and then return home Saturday to host a much-improved Edmonton Oil Kings team.

Wins have been hard to come by for Lethbridge since the start of 2011. With just one victory in their last 9 games, the Hurricanes need to find a way to put a few wins together if they want a shot at the final playoff position. Head Coach and G.M. Rich Preston said on one of our CJOC pre-game shows on the weekend that his club has to find some consistency. He also feels the remaining games this month could be a determining factor for the Hurricanes in terms on that last playoff spot, calling these February home games "a tell-tale sign".

These are critical times for the Hurricanes and three other teams in this battle. As mentioned here as part of the Red Deer game report, Lethbridge, Regina, Swift Current, and Prince Albert are all in the same boat. These four teams just can't seem to gain any ground on each other. It seems when one team loses, the others do as well.

In these final 15 regular season games, the Hurricanes play Red Deer twice, Edmonton four times, Kamloops twice, Kelowna, Chilliwack, Moose Jaw, and Medicine Hat all once and the Kootenay ICE two more times. There are certainly no "easy" games for the Canes' heading into the final four weeks of the season. I think they have to win 6 or 7 of these remaining games in order to get into that final playoff spot as well as get a little help in the out of town scoreboard. Impossible? No, but at the same time they will have to play some very solid hockey from here on out. It will likely be a battle that will go down to the final week of the regular season. The Hurricanes held their second annual Cops vs. Canes' game Sunday at the ENMAX Centre, followed by the ENMAX Skate with the Hurricanes. The event was very well attended and by all reports, people had a great time for those few hours. A tip of the hat goes to those within the Hurricanes organization putting on a good show.

HURRICANES THIS WEEK

Tonight on the program, Fred and I will be joined by Hurricanes forward Phil Tot off the top of the show. After that, we will welcome Hurricanes Assistant G.M. and Director of Player Personnel Brad Robson to talk about the upcoming WHL Bantam draft at the end of April as well as a few other things and in the final segment we will go to Edmonton and speak with Corey Graham, the new radio voice of the Edmonton Oil Kings. The show starts at 6:00 pm (MST). Just one note about the show, next week (Feb. 21) there will be no Hurricanes This Week. The Hurricanes play host Red Deer that Monday afternoon on Family Day at 2:00 pm, so we won't have a program for you next Monday. After tonight, the hockey show will resume February 28th at it's usual time. The final radio show for this WHL season is schedule for Monday, March 14th.

Thanks,

Pat

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