Highlanders Take Game One, Extend Lead; Scourge Are Most Improved

Game One of the Challenge Cup final goes to the visiting Highlanders. They get a chance to win their first trophy in 14 years with a second victory this week. The final switches to Stronghold for game two and the Highlander faithful have to be feeling pretty good about their team. Sunday's 3pt performance by S.Crosby helped cement an impressive 40pt week for the kilted ones (third best in the pool to the Scourge's 42pts and the Knights Templar's 45pts) but the victory was as much a product of a devestating coaching decision by the Bladerunners to bench M.Kipprusoff in net (at a loss of 5pts to J.S.Giguere) and J.Cheechoo on right (at a loss of 8pts to M.Recchi, who did get .5pts as TG). Those 12.5pts (assuming that a better tg option was not found, though A.Meszaros who had played tg the week prior got 2.5pts TG but was also benched) would have been enough to give the Bladerunners a narrow game one win and would have kept the Predator Cup race much closer. As it is, the Highlanders now boast a 25pt lead with only two weeks to go.

While S.Crosby's 3pt outburst was helpful, it has been the play of FP J.Thornton (8pts this week) that has been fueling the Highlanders success of late. Having moved to within 7pts on the NHL scoring lead, behind Crosby, his performance since the All-Star Game has been unmatched. He is simply carrying this team on his back and willing them to a victory. His job will get a little easier this week now that Gagne, Kaberle and fellow FP C.Pronger are all back in the line-up.

The Bladerunners can look to this season for some encouragement. They have outscored the Highlanders in 12 of the previous 25 weeks and on two occasions have done so by over 20pts (weeks 9 and 19 they scored approximately 21pts more than the Highalnders). That's the good news. The bad news is that 21pts is not enough and only for once all season, weeks 3 through 6, have the Bladerunners been able to outscore the Highlanders in consecutive weeks (outscoring them by approximately 12, 7, 7, and 6 pts respectively). The time to make history is now. And that time is running out.

The other story to follow is that of the Scourge. The rookie GM with the awful draft has put together a great run to ensure that a return to the cellar would be unlikely. They hold a 30pt lead on the Edge and even after a spirited effort mid-week where they halved the gap between them, they were unable to sustain the effort. The Scourge's task of avoiding the Herbivore mostly accomplished, the task of getting some hardware worth taking home is now on the "to do" list. The Scourge have ridden T.Priessing's +/- for a lot of their Omnivore improvement and full credit to them. They have also been able to turn to recent deadline additions (Satan, Rafalski, Redden) to help pick up the slack with Zetterberg's injury. The Severed Heads and the Shadowmen are both looking at this race for how it impacts their place in FunHL History. If the Highlanders can overcome the Scourge (and the Bladerunners for the other two awards) they will join Severed Heads as the only "Triple Crown" winners in FunHL history. If the Scourge do win they will join the Shadowmen as the only teams to win back-to-back Omnivores but with the distinction that they did it with two different GMs.

Two weeks and a lot to watch for, here are the unofficial stats through Sunday's games: