Mayhem welcome Pensacola this weekend in matchup of SPHL’s top teams

Last spring, Macon and Pensacola tangled in the semifinals of the SPHL President’s Cup Playoffs, with the Mayhem taking down the Ice Flyers on the way to the championship.

And although some of the faces have changed for both teams, both Macon and Pensacola will clash Friday and Saturday night at the Macon Coliseum in a pair of games that will once again pit two of the league’s top teams.

Pensacola has been the class of the SPHL most of this season and leads the standings with a 20-6-3 record and 43 points. Six points back with 37 points in third place is Macon with a 16-7-5 mark.

Both teams are stories of opposite extremes. Macon leads the league in scoring with 113 goals. Jake Trask’s 38 points leads the league, as does his 24 assists. Pensacola, on the other hand, has allowed the fewest goals among teams in the SPHL with 69. The Ice Flyers don’t have a scorer ranked in the top eight in the SPHL. They do on the other hand, have a goalie that has anchored strong play from his end of the ice. Gordon Defiel is 8-1-1 with a 2.16 GAA.

“Especially with them being at the top of the standings, you always want to play well against those teams, because we consider ourselves one of the best teams in the league and we want to prove that,” Trask said. “Going back to last year, beating them in the playoffs and we’ve played them a ton lately, so a rivalry or playoff thing has kind of built up.”

Similar to Macon last year with Garrett Bartus, Pensacola is finding success with a goalie stepping in to replace a big name. Bartus was loaned to the ECHL early last season and still remains with Fort Wayne. The Ice Flyers acquired reigning league MVP Sean Bonar in the offseason, but he was called up to the ECHL on Nov. 13 and has been there since.

Throw in the fact that the teams have split all six games between them this season, and there couldn’t be much more parity between two of the SPHL’s top teams

“They have good defensemen and forwards. They play a similar game to us, they try to get the puck in low and try to cycle to the defense. They have big D-men, they make it hard to get space in their end,” Trask said. “They’re fast and play hard, a lot like us. They may not score many goals, but when you get chances, you better score.”

Macon will have an adjusted look to its scoring lines this weekend thanks to the loaning of a pair of players to the ECHL as of Wednesday. Chris Izmirlian is off the Quad Cities with Stathis Soumelidis to Adirondack. Izmirlian, traded to Macon from Knoxville on Dec. 19, has 18 points with 10 games for Macon. Soumelidis has 28 points so far this year, surpassing the 20 from his entire season a year ago. Kristaps Nimanis was traded to Knoxville this week to complete the earlier trade of Izmirlian from Knoxville.

The team this week signed Jimmy Soper to a contract after a three-game tryout.

“It makes it a little tougher, having some of your regular guys going up,” Trask said. “This is a developmental league. If guys play well, they get the opportunity. We still like to go in expecting to win no matter how many guys we are dressing and expect to win.”

This story was originally published January 18, 2018 at 3:30 PM with the headline "Mayhem welcome Pensacola this weekend in matchup of SPHL’s top teams."