Tonight’s broadcast schedule

Montgomery Bell vs. Franklin - 8:25 PM pregame, 8:30 PM faceoff BROADCAST LINK

Previewing tonight’s games

The game that is being broadcast by MTSN is in BOLD.

For the six teams that are competing for the GNASH Cup, there are two records: their second half record, and their GNASH Cup record. If a team has an asterisk (*) next to their GNASH Cup record, that means they are out of GNASH Cup contention.

Ravenwood (0-2-0, 3-6-0*) vs. Father Ryan (1-1-0, 4-5-0) - 7:10 PM @ Centennial A
This could be overdramatic, but is Ravenwood’s season starting to fall apart? After beating Mt. Juliet-Wilson Central-Green Hill on November 8 to barely stay in Tier 1, they’ve now lost to Ensworth-Nolensville-Lipscomb and Franklin. The latter loss to the Admirals on Monday was uglier than the first one on October 2, and knocked the Raptors out of GNASH Cup contention. At this point, a Predators Cup three-peat looks increasingly unlikely. Oh, they’ve also fired their entire coaching staff and gotten a new one (again, I don’t think that’s the problem). Now, they face the team that beat them quite handily on opening night, September 25. The Irish frustrated Ravenwood in every aspect of the game, but Ravenwood’s poor defense which allowed Ryan’s top stars to get to the front of the net stuck out the most, outside of Zach Fonnesbeck’s brilliant play in goal. Fonnesbeck has trailed off a bit since that first week of the season, but Ryan have handled adversity better than Ravenwood from my eyes. Ravenwood MUST be better defensively in this game, or they’ll get humiliated again. Also, if the Raptors win this game, Father Ryan are out of GNASH Cup contention.

But, I’m saying Ryan pull off the regular season sweep.

Station Camp-Liberty Creek (0-2-0) vs. USN-BA-Nashville Christian-FRA-Goodpasture (1-2-0) - 7:30 PM @ Antioch-North
This is another rematch of a game from the first night of the regular season. The Bison were seven seconds from victory, when Brody Wales scored to force the game to end 5-5. Since then, the Station Camp-Liberty Creek co-op finally won a game (against Independence-Ravenwood 2 on October 18), and saw another almost-win end up a 5-5 (this one against the Tennessee Outlaws on October 30). Their most recent result was a 7-5 loss to Hendersonville-Beech-Gallatin on November 13. USN, meanwhile, are coming off of a 5-2 loss to Centennial on Monday. This is kind of a hard game to read. The Bison certainly made Ben Schwarz work in the first meeting. And USN really haven’t pulled away from them in terms of talent since. The Bison are capable of putting the puck in the net a lot in a single game (they’ve scored at least five goals in four games so far this season), and it takes a good offense to keep up with them.

I think the Bison will get the win this time.

Montgomery Bell (0-0-2, 6-0-3) vs. Franklin (2-0-0, 8-0-1) - 8:30 PM @ Centennial B
I think this rematch is happening too soon. These two are the most likely to still be standing in the GNASH Cup race after next week (actually, if Franklin win tonight, they will be the last two, as an Admiral win would eliminate Father Ryan and Pope Prep-MLK-GCA from contention), and it’s only been 37 days since their epic 1-1 tie, where Hunter Wieck saved 35 of 36 Franklin shots. But, it’s happening, and we have to talk about it. Both teams have had very different starts to the second half. MBA have two ties, against Ensworth-Nolensville-Lipscomb and Mt. Juliet-Wilson Central-Green Hill. In both games, the opposing team threw tons of shots at Hunter Wieck; the Ice Tigers put up 45, and the Bears had 42. His brilliance in net speaks to his talent, but it also speaks to something else, and that may be the fact that the Big Red could be relying on him too much. As I have said many times before, the top line of Lee Guy, Trace Graham, and Matthew Moore may be the best in the league, but outside a couple of other players such as Duke D’Alba, MBA don’t have a lot of depth, and their defense has really been slacking these last couple of games. They could end up in some trouble if they keep this up. Meanwhile, Franklin have roared off the starting line for the second half, clobbering Father Ryan 5-0 two weeks ago tonight, and destroying a downtrodden Ravenwood 7-2 on Monday night. The Admirals look like they’ll take off at any moment, but they need to definitely keep tabs on the Big Red’s Big 3 (even though it was Hunter Musser who scored in the first meeting for MBA, not any of their big boys). They need to get out to a multi-goal lead, and keep it, because the Guy-Graham-Moore line can change a game.

I do think Franklin will get the win, however.

Tennessee Outlaws (1-1-0) vs. Independence-Ravenwood 2 (0-2-0) - 8:40 PM @ Centennial A
This is yet another rematch of a game that occurred on September 25, this one the Outlaws won quite comfortably 6-2. Tennessee have started the second half pretty decently, with a 3-2 win over USN on November 13 followed up by a close 4-3 loss to Centennial two nights later. The Eagles, in the meantime, lost 2-0 to Rutherford on November 13, and 6-1 to Brentwood on Monday. By the way, in Monday’s newsletter, I mentioned that USN are playing four games over this two-week span. Well, so are the Eagles. This is going to be the shortest game preview so far, because I don’t have much else to say about this game, other than my prediction.

The Outlaws will win.

Rutherford Rampage (2-0-0) vs. Centennial (3-0-0) - 9:15 PM @ Antioch-North
I’ve made it no secret that I’m sour on this part of the regular season; sure, six Tier 1 teams are playing for the GNASH Cup, but, outside of that, everyone is playing for a playoff seed, a number next to their name on a bracket. But this is actually an intriguing game. The Rampage have begun their second life as a Tier 2 team in fine style, shutting out both Indy and Hendersonville, while Centennial have seen off Station Camp, the Outlaws, and USN. A promising goaltending battle between the Rampage’s Alec Dawes and the Cougars’ David Busby awaits. But that’s not all. You have Justin Dickinson, Eddie Maze, Tucker Wilhelm, and Carson Brownlow going up against Aiden Knecht, Brendan Mitchell, Rhett Gordon, and Calvin Zacharias. This should be a fun game, and could it potentially decide the 1 seed for the Henry Hine Cup? Maybe, but we know that Brentwood should have something to say about that.

I’m going with the Rampage in this one.

Standings

Monday’s final scores

Games that were broadcast by MTSN are in BOLD.

Brentwood 6, Independence-Ravenwood 2 1
Centennial 5, USN-BA-Nashville Christian-FRA-Goodpasture 2
Franklin 7, Ravenwood 2 PODCAST LINK
Rutherford Rampage 4, Hendersonville-Beech-Gallatin 0
Mt. Juliet-Wilson Central-Green Hill 6, Ensworth-Nolensville-Lipscomb 2
Pope Prep-MLK-GCA 4, Summit-Page 2 PODCAST LINK

Podcasts

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Miscellaneous links

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The next newsletter comes out tomorrow, November 30.