Denver Mid-Season Report

(AP) Denver, CO Here we are at midseason and to the surprise of this writer, the Spurs find themselves in 10th place in the 22 team CCHL and one point over .500 to boot. Amazin...eh? Amazin to me anyway. Pekka Rinne has been the main netminder of late and while his stats leave a bit to be desired, somehow has managed to post a 3-0-1 record in the last 4. Overall he has appeared in 22 games with a 3.38gaa, .898 SvPct to go along with a 9-11-1 record to date.
The scoring side of the club finds the top line still leading the way with Vinny Lecavalier (left top pic) in the top spot with 19g 30a 49 pts +12, Ryan Smyth (right pic) 20g 28a 48pts +11 and Petr Sykora (left middle pic) 19g 21a 40pts +16. Next up on the scoresheet are a couple of blueliners, the first being top RD Lubomir Visnovsky (right mid pic) with 6g 19a 25pts +10. He is followed by fellow blueliner John- Michael Liles (right bottom pic), who has played on all three defense pairings and both the right and left side throughout the season in posting 6g 15a 21pts with a plus/minus of zero. Liles has posted his numbers while playing in only 30 of the teams' 41 games to date. The big surprise is that +16 Sykora has posted over the first half of the season which leads the entire team! The old warhorses of the Spurs; Sakic, Brodeur and Shanahan, have helped the club admirably with Captain Joe posting 8g 12a 20pts +8 in 31gp, Shanahan 7g 10a 17pts +/-0 in 28gp while Marty Brodeur has posted a 8-5-5 record with a 2.32gaa and .930 SvPct in 18 games.


Dasher Notes
The last game, game 41 of the season for the Spurs, saw them throttle the Express on Long Island in a wild one by a score of 7-3. What was wild about it is that with the score tied 2-2 at the start of the 3rd, the Spurs lit the lamp 5 times during the period to come away with the 7-3 win in only their 5th road win of the season. John-Michael Liles netted two goals in the period, one the eventual game winner, and posted a +4 for the game. Easily his best game of the season to date. Smyth, Sykora and Visnovsky also tallied 3 points during the contest.
WHere the Spurs will finish over the second half of the season is anyone's guess. I sure won't venture to say either way, given the up and down performaces to date.
The Spurs travel to Calgary tomorrow to kick off the 2nd half of the season. Pekka Rinne is slated to start in net.

Reported by Peter Puckhead