ON TO COPENHAGEN!

John Tavares

Budapest, Hungary- Already hardened from a seven game series in the first round against Quebec, the Thunder Bay Timberwolves continued their ride into the playoffs on Tuesday with a 3-1 victory over the Budapest Honved in another seven-game bout to clinch the second round and now move on to take on the explosive Copenhagen Crusaders and their 8-1 playoff record in Round 3.
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"Budapest was a huge test for us," said Timberwolves forward Patrick Sharp. "They have one of the stingiest defenses in the league, led by [Zdeno] Chara and rock-solid goaltending. This can't but help us and make us a better, more dangerous group in the post season."
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The similarities between the first and second rounds are amazing for Thunder Bay vs the two opponents. In Round 1, Quebec had issues with healthy goaltending in Jaroslav Halak after the Slovakian backstop absorbed a Sheldon Souray blast from the point and never really rebounded. The Timberwolves lost game one, won games two and three, lost games four and five and took games six and seven to advance.
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In Budapest, the Timberwolves again faced stout goaltending in Evgeny Nabokov. They would end up losing game one, win games two and three, drop four and five and win games six and seven. With Nabokov leaving with an undisclosed injury just twelve minutes into game seven.
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"We're not running goalies for those who haven't seen any of our games," said Timberwolves captain, Keith Ballard. "We've heard the chatter that we wouldn't be where we are if we faced the other team's number one in big games. We can't control the health of those guys, and quite frankly don't care who we've faced to win. Honestly, we don't care what anyone really says about us. We can only worry about ourselves and do what we can to keep winning. Whatever anyone else says, we know what needs to be done and only we can execute out on the ice."
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In Copenhagen, the Timberwolves will be facing an opponent that they did not have a win against during the regular season. Going 0-3-1 in four games.
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"We're not given much of a chance against them," remarked head coach Craig Hartsburg while on the plane en route to Denmark from Hungary. "That's fine. We don't have a real good record against them to push anyone in our favour. But the playoffs are not the regular season, and we have just as much of a chance at this thing as they do. None of the rest of these playoff teams have really faced much of a challenge in the post season. None of them have faced elimination once, let alone twice. They've bull-dozed their opponents and have quite frankly, eased into the third round. I'm not knocking them for that. They're all very good hockey clubs obviously. But when the going gets tough, there's not a more battle tested club left here then us. That's not to say we're any better. But we've had to grind out some tough wins to stay alive and that can only make us better when we get into the trenches."
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The next round begins tomorrow for Game 1 against the Crusaders in Copenhagen. The other series has the Karlstad Killers in Dayton to take on the Musicmen.