Asia League Mid-Season Break
04 Dec 2012 | Matthew Cross
What are the standings, any hope for China, Barney and Swift in the lead
The Asia League has reached the mid-way point of it's long-drawn out schedule. The teams haven't all played an even amount of games, but most of them are close except for China. The Standings show the Eagles in a commanding and likely untouchable lead at this point. Unless they all get sick and have to forfeit every single game until the end of the season. After 20 games the Eagles have won 18 of them in regulation.
The Eagles have lead the regular season for the last two years. Last year they finished with 75 points in 36 games, and the year before they finished with 76 points in 36 games. Currently they have 54 points on 20 games. They are on pace to absolutely shatter that record, as well as the record for points in 42 games. In the 2005-2006 season the Paper Cranes and Kokudo each finished with 98 points at the end of the regular season. At their current pace the Eagles could finish the regular season in the neighbourhood of 120 points. They've haven't been completely invulnerable, but even when behind, they've shown an ability to come back and blow the doors off other teams.
It's all but a certainty at this point that the Eagles will capture their third straight regular season title, what happens post-season though is never certain. Even with a team as great as them. All it takes is an off-night, a lucky bounce, and desperate last minute play to dash their hopes. That might be all China needs to finally get a point as well.
China
China has struggled badly the last few years. They haven't always been so hopeless though. Prior to the 2007-2008 season, China was two teams. Hosa and Changchun Fuao. They mostly beat up on each other, but Hosa managed a couple wins against the Ice Bucks and took High1, then Kangwon Land, to overtime. After being combined into a single team, they didn't lose every game, then won a couple their first year and in their second year even finished ahead of the Bucks. However, the NHL ended their deal in 2009-2010 and the team has been at rock bottom since. They've finished with 3, 2, and then just 1 point last season.
Is all hope lost? Not necessarily. November showed some brief glimmers of hope. On the 13th, they lost by only 4-2 against the Eagles. On the 24th, they were in a position to pull the goalie to press for overtime against the Blades who had been pounding them hard all season. They're not victories, they're not points, but they are positive games for a team like China in the position they are in.
What is the best case scenario for China going forward? Splitting back into two teams, and heavy use of foreign imports and other countries' players might help China improve over all. Full compliments of imports, foreign coaching staff, and a even split 10 domestic players and 10 foreign/Japanese/Korean players would give them a chance. Even with several imports and several players from Japan, they're not quite winning yet. This has to be discouraging for the coaches, staff, and all involved. The two team format before at least allowed the Chinese teams to face off against each other and trade some wins and hopefully get a little positive motivation. Loss is a great teacher, but China Dragon are experts at loss at this point.
Points Leaders
High1 finds themselves back in a situation where they're not doing great in the standings but have the top point getters in the league. Last year Swift just embarrassed everyone by leading the goals and assists by a huge margin and finishing 23 points ahead of anyone else as top point getter over all. A similar situation happened in 2009-2010 when High1 finished in fourth place overall, but Alex Kim and Tim Smith lead the league each with 75 points. Swift finds himself in the overall lead again this year, but Barney has taken the goal lead with 21, helped by their recent three game pounding of China. Derlago and Radunske of Anyang Halla are not far behind them and haven't had the luxury of 28 goals in three games.
Swift and Barney have combined for an impressive 93 points together and the overall points, goals and assists leadsStandings
| Team | Games Played | Wins | Points
|
1 | Eagles | 20 | 18 | 54
|
2 | Blades | 21 | 12 | 38 |
3 | Cranes | 20 | 8 | 37 |
4 | Anyang Halla
| 24 | 9 | 34 |
5 | Icebucks | 23 | 6 | 27 |
6 | High1 | 21 | 7 | 26 |
7 | Dragon | 15 | 0 | 0 |
The current standings paint one picture, but when you look a little closer you see something a little different. The Blades for example, while sitting pretty at 38 points have already played all their games against China. The Cranes and Halla haven't played a single one. Several of the other teams have only played a couple. What this means is a bit of a skewing of the points. While the Eagles are clearly in first place, analyzing the rankings without the games against China might give us a different perspective of how the teams are doing. Based on points per game:
| Points per Game
|
Eagles | 2.67 |
Cranes | 1.85 |
Anyang Halla
| 1.42 |
Blades | 1.21 |
High1 | 0.94
|
Bucks | 0.9 |
A couple of big moves is that the Blades go to fourth, and the Bucks drop into sixth. The Bucks spent several games without Fukufuji, so his return might give them an upswing in their point per game average. An upswing in the Bucks play, along with a dip in the Blades might see them battling for the final play-off spot come the end of the season. China suddenly becoming successful though and catching one of the teams unaware might suddenly make the Blades' seven victories against them more valuable. Should High1 be totally counted out? No, but like Halla they need to get some greater depth and spread the workload around. High1 has been known to have some big surprising victories, so some second half momentum could propel them into fourth place.
With the first half of the season done, and the Eagles in the middle of a historic run, the second half promises to be somewhat interesting.