Wednesday night at the Arena for game #1 of the Division Semifinals, the first home playoff game for the Royals since 2018. The visiting Maine Mariners qualified as the division's #4 finisher, they won their last three regular-season games (including a victory over the Royals in Portland on the 13th) to finish with a .514 points percentage. For the Royals it's the fourteenth postseason appearance in the club's twenty years, for the Mariners it's the first playoff appearance since the franchise joined the league in 2018-19 (although both teams would have qualified the following year before The BS ruined everything). On this night the Royals drew first blood with Kenny Hausinger scoring on the power play midway through the first period. In the second period Brayden Low bagged a pair of goals to put the Royals up by three but to their credit the pesky Mariners refused to go quietly. In the closing moments Maine pulled the goalie for the extra attacker and scored twice within two minutes to draw within one. With thirty-seven seconds left in regulation time the Royals were penalized, the Mariners attacked six-on-four but Logan Flodell and company were able to hold the fort as the Royals took the crucial opening-game win 3-2. It's the Royals' first playoff W in exactly five years (a 3-2 win in Brampton on April 20, 2017) and the first on home ice since the first game of that series. It didn't take long for the playoff "hate factor" to develop, the game was contentious from the get-go with confrontations at just about every other whistle (the clubs met four times in the last week of the regular season so they are not exactly strangers to each other). Game #2 is on Friday the 22nd at the Arena, after that the clubs travel to Portland for the next three. Take care, thanks for reading.
