Coming into this weekend we find ourselves entering the Slough Ice Arena for the final time this season as the TSI World Bees welcome the Leeds Knights to Slough Ice Arena on Sunday evening but before that they make the long trip up to Planet Ice Leeds to take on the Knights for the away leg on Saturday evening. 

Leeds have had a great run with their playoffs fixtures after securing 4 points against the Hull Seahawks from a 8-3 win at Leeds and an away 6-3 win but found themselves dropping only 1 point when they faced the Peterborough Phantoms away with a 3-2 penalty shootout loss and then a 4-2 win at Leeds on the Sunday evening. In order for the Knights to secure their place at Coventry they need to get at least 1 point this weekend against the Bees. 

The power play that Leeds has been playing throughout their playoff games has been 53.85% effective as they have been able to successfully use 7 out of 13 man advantages in the 4 games they have completed with the goals being scored by: Jake Witkowski, Jordan Buesa, Matthew Barron and Mac Howlett. On the other side, their penalty kill has been 87.50% as they have only had one power play goal get to the back of Sam Gospel’s net during the playoff fixtures. 

There has been a total of 94 shots on goal against the Knights so far with this leaving the Leeds netminder facing roughly 31 shots on goal per game whereas Leeds are having an average of 34 shots on goal per game with them totaling 102 shots on goal against the opposing teams netminders. Leeds have not been able to score any short-handed goals throughout their playoff campaign this year but have been able to score 7 power play goals and this will be a key part of Leeds’ game that the Bees will need to watch out for. The Knights have had only 11 goals scored against them and have been able to score 20 goals. The maximum amount of points that the Leeds Knights can finish their playoff run with is 11 points.

Going into this final doubleheader against the Leeds Knights and final 2 games, the Bees will need to watch out for Jake Witkowski and Matthew Barron. Jake Witkowski finds himself as the top point scorer for the Knights as in the playoffs games he has completed he has collected a total of 7 points from 1 goal and 6 assists while also facing zero penalty minutes. He has also managed to score a power play goal and get 1 assist for the Knights during playoffs. Matthew Barron has been a huge part of the Knights’ power play as he has been able to score 3 goals on the power play in the past 2 weeks and has collected 1 assists to total his points collected to 4. He will be a key individual on the power play for the Knights and any chance the Bees get to stop him will be a massive boost to their efforts to secure points this weekend.