Murder One

The obvious primary storyline in the Spring 2024 Final was the battle of the league’s two top goalies. Silas ‘The Silencer’™ Perks has gotten more press than Taylor Swift of late, but if you missed his Scrooge-On-Meth miserly mission this season, he went 6-0-2/.968/0.63/4 SO for Olive through the regular season. He was only slightly less lockdown in the playoffs, but still by far the toughest goalie to face (if you like scoring goals and winning games) on any given Sunday. Red’s Sean ‘Da Kid’ Kelly…a living legend whose legacy only lengthens each season. His regular season line of 5-1-1/.940/1.14/2 SO would put most any other netminder’s numbers to shame, but Kelly would need to be at his sharpest to outduel Perks and make certain that this Final would only go one round. To no one’s surprise, this one played out as expected…an extremely tight, and extremely low-scoring affair. A scoreless first saw both teams finding a few chances, but no conversions, with Red holding the slimmest of edges in the shot count department (5-4). Olive, not typically known for outshooting their opponents, actually doubled Red’s shot total in the second (10-5), but it was Red’s Nick Vacchio who would shoot the only shot that counted…finding and burying a rebound off the back boards to give Red the one goal edge (Alexis DaCosta) on the powerplay at 6:36. It was another double up in the shot column for Olive in the third, as they fired twelve at Kelly with just six hitting Perks, but Kelly (26/26) was the Jedi Master to Perks’ Padawan in this one, as he and his Red mates made their only goal the only goal they would need to reach their goal…the Spring League 2024 Cup. Congratulations once again to Red, and also to Silas Perks (15/16) and his Olive mates, who absolutely dominated the regular season, and came up JUST short of their late summer destiny.