Spring Season - Week Ten - April 28th

Playoffs: Round One

8:00pm: Ihsan vs Haya - Wildcard Game

After their stunning lost against Yaqeen last week, Ihsan must do things the hard way in their defense of their championship as they face Haya in the wildcard game.  During the regular season the teams split the season series with each team winning one game.  Ihsan won the first game 3-1 and Haya won the second game 5-1.  From all the teams that qualified for the playoffs these two teams have the lowest offensive production, each only scoring 18 goals.  Yousuf Soliman leads the charge for Ihsan with 5 goals and 5 assists.  The duo of Aazar Zafar and Mehmed Rizvanovic are the bus-drivers for Haya with 6 points each.  Also among the playoff teams these two squads were the worst in keeping the ball out of their net.  Ihsan gave up 26 goals and Haya right behind them with 28 goals. It is hard to predict how this game will go as both teams have been inconsistent throughout the season.  That said, both squads have strong goalies and players who can take over the game - the question is will anyone step up and do that tonight?

An hour after the conclusion of this game, the winner will enter the rink with the league’s top team during the regular season, Emaan.     

9:00pm: Sabr vs Taqwa - Semi-Finals

One of these teams will be heading to the 2017 Spring Finals.  These teams split the season series one game each.  In the first meeting Taqwa won 3-1.  However, the week after, Sabr outclassed Taqwa 6-1.  No one expected either of these teams to be here.  Sabr has made great strides from the Fall.  They have five players that finished in the top ten in scoring: Luqman Arshad (9 points), Saleem Malik (9 points), Ali Malik (10 points), Akib Malik (12 points) and the league’s top goal scorer, Dawood Ciombar (10 goals).  Taqwa are the new kids on the block and at the start of the season were perceived to be one of the weaker teams.  Their main offense weapons are Farooq Sani (7 points), Abu Patel (7 points), Yasser Habib (9 points) and of course the other league’s top goal scorer Adil Patel (17 points).  On paper Sabr has the edge in offense, defense and in goaltending, and come into this match-up as heavy favorites.  However, in a one game elimination things might come down to the head to head match-up of the league’s best goal scorers, Ciombar vs Patel.   

              

10:00pm: Haya/Ihsan vs Emaan - Semi-Finals

Emaan awaits the winner of the 8pm wildcard game.  Emaan (aka TMT) won both games against Haya whereas they haven’t been able to beat Ihsan in the past two seasons.  So it’s obvious who they would rather face.  There is a lot of interesting story lines for both potential opponents.  If they end up facing Haya, Asad Darr has another opportunity to re-kindle some magic from 2014 and slay TMT once more.  Let’s not forget Atif Mian’s motivation of not being redrafted back onto Emaan as he’d be more than happy to send TMT fishing back in Cambridge.  If Emaan ends up facing Ihsan, well I guess to be the man you got to beat the man.  If this scenario does play out then the question becomes can TMT man up against their rivals?