Box Score | Game Live
Welcome to the Turner Conference Finals, the Missouri Mavericks have advanced to their first conference finals thanks to an Opening Round series sweep over the Evansville IceMen. The Mavs finished off the sweep on Monday night with a 3-1 victory over the IceMen at the Independence Events Center.
Missouri will now advance to face the winner of the Rapid City Rush/Fort Wayne Komets series that has each team with one win.
Charlie Effinger has been one of the top goalies in the league during the second half of the season and the post-season is no different as he finished off the IceMen with a 39 save effort allowing just a third period goal to Todd Robinson (Joe Burton Scoring Champion). Effinger won all four games in the series for the Mavericks.
The Mavs got off and rolling early thanks to John-Scott Dickson scoring his second goal of the series at the 2:09 mark of the opening period. Tristin Llewellyn made it 2-0 with his first goal of the playoffs at the 11:57 mark giving Effinger all the offense he would need.
After Robinson cut the lead to one in the third period, the Mavs defense took over thwarting every Evansville push. Sebastien Thinel ended the season of the IceMen with an empty-net goal with just over a minute remaining.
Thinel and Dickson each finished the game with a goal and an assist.
The Mavs become the 19th team in 26 tries to sweep their opponent when jumping out to a 3-0 lead (no team in CHL/WPHL history has ever come back to win a series when trailing 3-0).
Pier-Olivier Pelletier made a strong night with 30 saves but took the loss for Evansville who finished second in the conference during the regular season but finished the regular season with just four wins in their last 13 games.
The Mavs end the season with an 8-1-1 record against Evansville and for the third straight season wins their first series in the post-season.