Still looking for first win of the season

It has been a challenging start to the season for the Funday Nationals. SIx games in to the MMFHL campaign, and the Nationals are still winless.  However, there is reason for optimism.  

The Nationals will be making their first overnight road-trip of the regular season, and this is a great opportunity for the team to bond, build memories, and possibly remove the 0 from the win column.  

There are some bright spots for the Nationals to this point.  Claire Noftell currently sits 5th in the league in save percentage, which is all the more impressive when you consider that she leads the league in shots faced.  Noftell has turned aside an average of 51.3 shots per game, while giving up just 12 goals in her 3 starts.  And while the team has scored just four goals in their six games, the goals have come from four different players.

When they head into the Metro Halifax region next weekend (October 16 and 17), they will face one team off to a bit of a slow start themselves in the Halifax Western Capitals, before going up against the much-improved Bussey Auto Brokers Penguins.

The Caps are the newest franchise in the MMFHL, and are showing some growing pains in the early going.  With just one win in their first eight games, they have had some struggles scoring goals (6th in the league in goals per game - 1.38).  However, they are not getting outscored by huge margins.  In fact, while they only have one win, they also have three ties to go with that, and a goal differential of -9 (-1.13 per game).  So with a pair of struggling offenses, could it be first goal wins when they meet on Saturday in West Hants?

The Nationals will move further into the city on Sunday, playing the Bussey Auto Brokers Penguins at the RBC Centre in Dartmouth.  The Penguins are off to a very good start this season, sitting in third place with points in 5 of their 8 games (4-3-1).  The Penguins sit third in the league in goals scored per game, third in goals against per game, and third in goal differential.  

The Penguins are getting very good goaltending out of their tandem, with Kaitlyn Langille and Grace McNutt both in the top 7 for GAA, and top 10 for save percentage.  They are also getting balanced scoring, as they are on of only two teams (Selects are the other) with every skater on the team registering at least one point this season.

Tomorrow (Friday), we will take a look at the Lynx and Rockets ahead of their meeting in Membertou in just over a week.