Back in 2009, a little team that could battled its way through an unbelievable second half of the season and snuck up on some teams as they made their way to the playoffs, the Finals and eventually hoisted the Ray Miron Presidents’ Cup as the 2009 CHL Champions.

Don’t look now, but the 2011-12 edition of Dan Wildfong’s team is beginning to take a familiar form.

The Brahmas, once double-digits behind the leaders in the Berry Conference, are still sitting in the third seed but are much more comfortable with a 12 point lead over the fourth place Tulsa Oilers and just one point behind the second place Allen Americans for what would amount to a home-ice advantage in at least one playoff series.

That 2009 Brahmas bunch went 26-7-3 after Christmas while this year’s version are sitting with a 15-7-2 mark since early January.

Texas has relied heavily on the defense not allowing more than two goals in any of their last nine games and posting an 8-1-0 record over that span. 

Texas’ Mark Guggenberger has been in net for all nine of those games and is currently the league leader with a 1.82 GAA and a .930 save percentage.  The rookie is 18-5-3 on the season.

A huge part of the Brahmas success is their play on home ice where they are 18-4-4 (tops in the CHL) and have won eight straight at the NYTEX Sports Centre.

The offense has been quite balanced with Chad Woollard, Phil Fox and Adam Hogg all sitting near a point a game in their last 10 contests.

The Brahmas are poised to do more damage with seven of their last 11 games on home ice and they go head-to-head with Allen four more times.