Bring on the Storm.

The Norwich Merchants cast aside Woodstock Saturday night in a 3-1 win. It now sets up the West Division against the Simcoe Storm. Simcoe defeated Norwich the last 3 times they met in the division finals the lst being in 2005. They met last season in the Division Semi Final last year where Norwich won in 5 games. The two teams split the season series 3 a piece as for this playoff series I give Norwich a slight advantage. Offensively Simcoe has the advantage with thier big line of Zane Nielly, Jordan Paton and Kris Purawec can light it up at will it seems but after that their depth up front becomes surprisingly thin although the addition of Cody Thornton at the trade deadline should help out up front. Norwich needs to get another line other than their big line of Chad Barclay, Sean McLeod and Kris Krouluski to start scoring. On the Blueline I give Norwich a big advantage they have a much more mobile unit than Simcoe and have more firepower from the blueline than Simcoe does. In goal the advantage goes to Norwich goalie Cody Vinnai over either Chris Willis or Kris McCubrey of the Storm, and After Vinnai's performance in the Woodstock series( 1.28 GAA, 94.3 save percentage) he'll be hard to beat. It should be a good series to watch, the rivalry between these two teams is still like it was the last time these two teams met in the finals three years ago. Norwich will take this series in 6 games. All the fun starts Friday night in Norwich.