Welcome to the second edition of Federal Offense, my weekly recaps of the FPHL, the Federal Prospects Hockey League.
This week the Elmira River Sharks were busy playing 4 games in 4 nights, starting off on Thursday night when they hosted the Port Huron Prowlers. Port Huron would take this one in a nail biter, 3-2 led by a pair of goals from Mitch Jones. Elmira made it close, pulling their goalie on a late power play, scoring with 55 seconds left, but the Prowlers survived the late surge to hold on for the victory. Friday was more of the same. Mitch Jones would add another goal, while Alex Johnson, Dalton Jay and Sam Marit would each add a goal and an assist leading a 5-1 rout. Unfortunately for Elmira, the rest of the weekend would not get any better. Saturday they traveled to Binghamton to face the Black Bears, but it was not a warm welcome, as they would suffer a 9-2 drubbing. Binghamton was led by a pair of goals and an assist each from Gavin Yates and Donald Olivieri and 3 assists from Dakota Bohn. Elmira’s woes would continue on Sunday when they traveled to Watertown to take on the Wolves, as Eloi Bouchard would turn away all 44 shots from the River Sharks and Tete Lesson would net a pair of goals en route to a 4-0 shutout.
Speaking of Binghamton and Watertown, before they each had their opportunity to feast on the lowly River Sharks, they faced off Friday night in Watertown with the Black Bears taking the tight contest 5-3. Binghamton was led by a pair of goals from Jesse Anderson and a pair of assists and a goal from Connor Smith.
Watertown would then travel Saturday to Danbury to take on the Hat Tricks. Brandon Stojcevski would lead the way for the Tricks with a pair of goals as Danbury took the contest 5-3.
The Columbus River Dragons and Baton Rouge Zydeco faced off in Columbus for a pair of matchups. Columbus solidified their position in first place though, taking Friday’s game 3-1 led by a pair of goals from Kyle Moore as Travis Roy turned away 22 of 23 shots. Saturday was a huge night for Columbus fan favorite Jay Croop. Not only did Croop play in his 300th FPHL game, but he also scored his 100th career goal as Columbus took this one 6-2.
Motor City would host the Blue Ridge Bobcats for a trio of contests and Blue Ridge would continue to show some potential. Friday’s 4-1 score is deceiving, as a pair of late empty net goals padded the score. Trevor Babin would lead the Rockers stopping 31 of 32 shots, while Owen Liskiewicz would turn away 16 of 18 for Blue Ridge. Friday wasn’t as close though, but not quite a blowout as Motor City took it 5-2, led by a goal and assist each from Roman Gaudet and TJ Delaney. Sunday though Blue Ridge finally pulled through with the 4-2 victory, led by a goal and assist from Josh Newberg.
The highlight of the week though, came from Biloxi. Last week, the Mississippi Sea Wolves pulled off a massive upset over the Carolina Thunderbirds. This week, they didn’t just pull off an upset………they SWEPT the Thunderbirds. Thursday night they thoroughly dominated the Thunderchickens, I mean Thunderbirds(sorry force of habit), 5-1, led by a pair of goals from Yianni Liarakos and 46 saves from Blake Weyrick. Friday was more of the same as the Sea Wolves pulled off a 4-1 victory completing the sweep, led by 31 saves from Weyrick and a pair of goals from Bond, Jackson Bond.
This week’s completely biased and unscientific power rankings.
11: Baton Rouge Zydeco(NC)
They’re really struggling, dropping a pair to Columbus definitely didn’t help matters. If there is a light at the end of the tunnel, they weren’t completely embarrassed by the Dragons.
What a slide for Elmira, dropping two spaces, but losing 4 games this week including a pair of blowouts and getting shutout is not a good sign.
While they did dispatch Elmira, they dropped a pair to Danbury and Binghamton. They’re pretty much a lock to make the playoffs, but they’ll need to make some vast improvements to make it out of the first round at this point.
Yes, they dropped a pair to Motor City, but they were in both of those games in the 3rd period and pulled out the win on Sunday. Blue Ridge is definitely moving in the right direction.
Danbury only had one game this week and defeated Watertown. It’s not enough to move up, but it’s a start.
Yes, they took a pair from Blue Ridge, but they dropped one. While it’s hard to drop them, there is a team that made a massive jump this week.
They’re in the same boat as Motor City, yes they took a pair of wins, but there is a team that sky rocketed this week.
The most surprising drop this week is easily Carolina. Getting swept by the 4th place team will never help your rankings, but losing 3 in a row to them in the last 2 weeks to them is never good.
Yes they have a losing record, but they’ve won 3 of the last 4 against arguably one of the best teams in the league and 7 of their last 9. There is no doubt Mississippi is heading in the right direction and could be the most dangerous team in the league right now.
There’s little doubt that at the moment it’s a 2 team race for the best record in the league and it’s a one team show for the lead in the Empire Division. Binghamton holds a commanding 19 point lead over Motor City in second place.
As above, it’s a 2 team race right now. While they only lead Binghamton by a single point, they also have a commanding lead over second place, lesson Carolina by 14 points. While the FPHL’s point system of 3 points for a regulation win can cause rapid changes, there’s little doubt that Columbus is the best team in the league right now riding a 9 game winning streak and 11 straight at home and 12-1 overall at home. It’s clear If you want to beat Columbus, you’ll have to do it in your barn.
Once again the FPHL seems to be changing the rules on the fly.
Recently, the league implemented a rule, that they said wasn’t a rule, they called it a “Directive from the Commissioner”. Do they think their fans are stupid? Don’t insult the intelligence of your fan base. If it’s not a rule, you can’t enforce it.
Any way, the new “directive”, forget it, I will not insult your intelligence either. Their new rule stated that for every 2 games a player is suspended, the Head Coach would be suspended for 1 game for failing to control their player. Coaches were pretty quickly slapped with suspensions, yet the league showed obvious bias when Austin Pickford of Elmira, which just happens to be owned by the league, was slapped with a 10 game ban, yet Head Coach Tyler Gjurich was not given a 5 game suspension under the new rule. The league stated in it’s press release about the suspension that one reason for the 10 game ban was as follows.
“Mr. Pickford was advised by a linesman at his player’s bench that he had been penalized and needed to proceed to the penalty bench. He responded by threatening the linesman with physical injury.”
They then tried to justify not suspending the coach: “The coach of Elmira will not be suspended per the new directive as this is obviously not an issue of controlling the actions of his team late in a game.”
Huh? The bench is the one place the coach CAN control their players. Again, they must think the fans are stupid if they want you to believe this garbage. Well, multiple teams decided to exploit a loophole, their Head Coaches “stepped down” and became the Assistant Coach. Almost immediately two coaches, Binghamton’s Brant Sherwood and Danbury’s Billy McCreary had their suspensions overturned and the league “defined” the rule.
“As a result of our conversations, we realize that automatically suspending head- coaches in situations where they could not have mitigated their player’s actions or behavior is counter-productive to our intentions. The league needs a coach behind the bench that the players respect and who is able to control his bench during tough times and altercations”
They further stated that “Directive(Rule) of 1-4-2024 that mandated an automatic suspension of a coach whose player received a suspension of TWO (2) or more games will no longer be in effect. As explained above, we need coaches to be behind their benches and controlling their players.”
If the FPHL wants to be taken seriously as a professional league, they need to stop changing rules mid season. This is embarrassing to the entire sport.
Speaking of embarrassing, the league still has not given a public explanation for their ban of Daniel Amesbury, heck, they haven’t even told HIM why it was done. Another thing that makes them look weak, if Mr. Amesbury is so dangerous, why would he be allowed to sign in the ECHL which is affiliated with the NHL? It’s old news by now, but Daniel Amesbury has signed with the Fort Wayne Komets. The only catch, he just has to finish his 18 game suspension. He will be eligible to play his first game for the Komets on February 3rd when they travel to Cincinnati and face the Cyclones.
Photo Credit – Toni.Hill@prohockeynews.com