As the Niagara West Division final starts up Wednesday night in Aylmer it's time for this blogger to preview this matchup which will be the fifth straight year that these two meet in the playoffs with Aylmer never having won.
Offence: Aylmer gets the edge in this category having scored 197 goals compared to Norwich's 158, Aylmer has had great out put from Rob Vanwyseberg, Graham Spriel, Jeff Gardner along with strong offenseve contributions from super pests Rob Gavey and Adam Vandepoele. Norwich's offence seemed to struggle at times and picked up in the playoffs as they were led by Bryan Phillips, Ryan Baetz and Ryan Devos as they averaged 5 goals a game in thier win over Simcoe.
Defence: Norwich gets the edge as a group over Aylmer. In my opinion the best group of Dmen that Norwich has had in a long time, Aylmer's D is prone to a lot of odd man rushes and tend to let thier opponents get alot of shots on net and a ton of scoring chances.
Goal: Norwich's rookie goalie Justin Alyea gets the edge over Aylmer's Brandon Rohrer. Alyea won every statistical category in the division except wins. Rohrer has always been considered Aylmers weak link and will continue to if Norwich wins again .
Aylmer finished first in the division by 2 points over Norwich and as was mentioned earlier Norwich has won the previous four playoff meetings and with Dave Smith behind the Norwich bench a fifth playoff win and a second straight division title should be within reach and a possible rematch with Grimsby in the Niagara final, Norwich takes this series in 6 hard fought games and wins the crown in front of the hometown fans.
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