PENTICTON – The Westside Warriors need to find one legitimate reason to believe they can beat the Penticton Vees.
However, all signs point to a Penticton triumph when the Okanagan rivals open a best-of-seven Interior Conference semifinal series tonight at the South Okanagan Events Centre.
Westside has basically played little brother to the big, bad Vees since moving to West Kelowna to start the 2006-07 season.
The Vees have a lopsided edge in the head-to-head series and easily swept the Warriors in four games in the conference final en route to a BCHL championship in 2007-08.
Penticton finished comfortably ahead of the Warriors in the standings every season except last season, when the two teams finished tied and Westside was awarded a higher placing on a tiebreaker. This just in – there are no ties in the playoffs.
The Warriors surely thought this might be their year to finally get the better of Penticton. Westside won three of the first four meetings, including a home-and-home series sweep in October. Then the Vees decided to get serious and won the next four games to take the season set 5-3. When all was said and done, the Vees finished 20 points ahead of the Warriors in the standings. The Warriors‘ 38-18-1-3 record was pretty darned good. But Penticton‘s record of 48-8-0-4 was pretty darned great.
That‘s just kind of the way it goes when it comes to these two teams. Westside has some skill and a lot of try in them. Penticton has a ton of skill and a lot of try.
The Vees have to be wary of that Westside work ethic. The Warriors have come out hard and won a lot of first periods against Penticton this season. But the Vees kept finding ways to come back and win. They always seem to do that against the Warriors.
They should do it again in this playoff series. It might be close, but there‘s a good chance it won‘t be. Penticton is that much better, and motivation won‘t be an issue.
The Vees want another crack at the Vernon Vipers, and the BCHL‘s premier player, Denver Manderson, will make sure they get it.
It‘s just hard to see enough weird things happen to prevent Penticton winning in a seven-game series. They have the edge at practically every position.
Up front, Westside has some very good offensive players. But if you think Cam Reid, Trevor Bailey and Grayson Downing are better than Manderson, Beau Bennett and Garrett Milan, you probably haven‘t watched enough games this season.
Depth-wise, the Vees also have an edge. Logan Johnston and Joey Holka have emerged as two of the best power forwards in the league, Alex Szczechura has a nose for the net, Ryan Viselli has scored as a first-line forward in the post-season and you have guys like Eric Filiou and Jake Johnson playing on the fourth line.
Call the defence a wash if you must, but I‘ll give the slight edge to Penticton‘s blue-line. Brendan Ellis is pretty darned good and he did win the top defenceman award in the conference, but Vees rookie star Joey Laleggia outscored him by seven points. But the Vees‘ 20-year-old Matt Paltridge may, however, be the most complete defenceman on either team.
We hear great things about Warriors veteran Kevin Jebson, but he‘s rarely displayed any of them in Penticton. He better bring his ’A‘ game to give his team any hope of an upset, because Vees goalie Sean Bonar isn‘t likely to give up more than two or three a night.
The Vees enjoyed a big-time edge in special teams, both overall and in the head-to-head matchups, and that isn‘t likely to change in this series.
Prediction: Vees in 5.
Vernon vs. Quesnel: Kudos to the Mills for finally winning a playoff series. But if Penticton-Westside is like big brother against little brother, this one is going to be like men against boys. These teams were separated by 55 points in the standings for a reason. Just way too much depth and speed for Quesnel to cope with. VERNON in 4. Top of Page
