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The best SHL team to not make the finals this season was the Edmonton Blizzard. Edmonton has been a powerhouse and regularly made deep runs in the playoffs recently and it seemed like this season was going to be more of the same. They led the league in points by a decent margin, topped the goal differential charts, and had 6 of the top 10 players in plus/minus. All in all, it was a bit surprising to see them lose in the conference semi-finals, especially while only winning one game in the series. Edmonton surely will be disappointed with their playoff performance as they certainly came in as one of the favorites to lift the cup. (118 words)

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As Jarrod Lakemore enters the prime of his career, he is hoping to put up some good numbers in the IIHF for Team Latvia. Latvia has had some pretty disappointing results the last few seasons, failing to make it out of the group stage. The team has generally had some strong players at the top end, but not quite the depth that some of the stronger teams have. This hasn't really changed this year as Latvia will once again be icing a decent amount of junior players on their senior team, but there still is enough talent at the top end that Latvia can certainly play their way into the knockout stage this time around. Latvia's main issue is lack of defensive depth as their third pairing will feature two junior players, but Latvia does have three pretty solid forward lines that should be able to score enough to be competitive against just about anyone. It wouldn't be surprising to see Latvia finally turn their fortunes around and make it out of the group stage this season. (180 words)