SIOUX FALLS, S.D.— The Sioux Falls Stampede has arrived in Kearney, Neb. to take on the Tri-City Storm for the first round of the Clark Cup Playoffs, a best-of-three, consecutive game series held at the higher seed. The Stampede and Storm have met seven times this season with the Stampede holding a record of 3-3-1-0.
The fifth-ranked Stampede and fourth-ranked Storm saw each other just two weekends ago in Kearney. The Herd took game one in a shootout with
Chris Pelosi scoring the only shootout goal and
Christian Manz stopping all three of the Storm's attempts. The second game went in favor of the Storm with a score of 6-3.
During the regular season, the Herd had a few standout players that pushed the team forward in
JJ Wiebusch,
Chris Pelosi and
Tyler Borgula. Wiebusch is in the top 20 in the USHL for points scored, sitting at 15
th with 63 total points off 29 goals and 34 assists. Between the pipes, goaltender
Michael Chambre holds a 3.65 goals-against average with a 17-12-4-1 record for the Herd. Leading the save percentage front is
Christian Manz with a save percentage of .880.
On the opposite side of the ice, Tri-City's Trevor Connelly has been a force to reckon with, marking 31 goals and 37 assists for 78 points, second in the league. The Herd may be in luck this week and not have to worry about Connelly, turning their attention to Artemi Nizameyev or Jake Rozzi instead, as Connelly is currently with Team USA preparing for the IIHF U18 World Championship in Finland. Connelly joins Stampede goaltender
Caleb Heil on Team USA's roster for this tournament, which begins on Apr. 25 with Team USA taking on Team Slovakia.
The winner of the first round of playoffs will go on to take on the Fargo Force starting this coming weekend. The winner of that series goes on to play in the conference final against the winner of the Sioux City side of conference semifinals. In the event the Stampede makes it into Conference Semifinals, the team will be hosting a minimum of one game at the PREMIER Center against Fargo. In this scenario, information on the series and tickets will be released closer to the series.
