nivek_wahs
09-21-2007, 10:05 AM
http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=110333&Itemid=563
New year, vastly different team
PRINCE GEORGE COUGARS OPEN REGULAR SEASON AT HOME TONIGHT
(Sports) Friday, 21 September 2007, 01:00 PST
JIM SWANSON Citizen Sports Editor
They’re gone. And must be forgotten.
For the Prince George Cougars -- and, indeed, their fans -- to form a belief that the coming WHL season isn’t worth weighting down and tossing into the murky Fraser, there has to be a sudden and discernable whitewashing of the recent past.
Yes, Devin Setoguchi was exciting. Yes, he had a strong cast of top-six forwards around him, most of them now graduated. Yes, he came at a cost - one that was, it’s hard to argue, worth the price, now and for the next three years.
When last we saw the Cougars -- and we’re not talking about that silly-season game against Kamloops two weeks ago -- they were acting as though Stan Butler was still at the helm. That is, they were bumbling, stumbling and grumbling through an insufficient regular season, at least based on the talent on the roster, then turning it up in a captivating playoff run.
There were too many things to remember fondly from those 15 playoff games. Sweeping the Kamloops Blazers beefed this city’s civic pride, particularly when three of the victories came in overtime and two of those were scored by native son Nick Drazenovic. Sweeping Everett in the second round -- OK, so the sweep appeared only after dropping two in a row in Silvertips territory -- was a bigger upset than the 1997 playoffs when the Cougars upended Portland in six games because Everett was the top-ranked team in the entire CHL. The Game 6 trouncing woke the building up again. It made the city believe, and there was no shame in losing the next series to the Vancouver Giants, because all that club did was go on to win the Memorial Cup.
(That was the second time in Prince George history the Cougars lost a playoff series to the eventual CHL champions. The other time? The 2001 first-round series loss to Kootenay that never should have been a defeat.)
Back on topic. This season. The one so many are projecting, with reason, to be a bust.
Gone are 304 points from last season. The top returning scorer, Dana Tyrell and his 30 goals, will be hard-pressed to match that number simply because he will no longer be skating with accomplished talents like Eric Hunter, Jared Walker or Drazenovic. Even granting Tyrell another 30-goal season, the fall-off after that is dramatic -- this year’s captain Greg Gardner had 16 goals, and that was heralded as a major breakthrough for him. No other returning forward scored more than eight times last season.
Is it any wonder why the offence is such a hot button item for this year’s team?
That’s the doom and gloom. The boom, that’s on the back end.
Real Cyr is here, and he’s a 20-year-old considered among the top netminders in the league. In front of him, the Cougars have the makings of the best defence in the WHL. No joke. The most important man for this team this year might be team shrink Dr. Max Offenberger -- get him in here quick, to work with the emotionally fragile parts of the roster.
Everyone knows Ty Wishart has the physical tools to be dominant, but last year he showed a real lack of urgency in his game that prevented him from owning the ice. When he was passed over for the final national junior team camp, he shut it down for a long time and did just enough to get by.
Then there’s Jesse Dudas. Remember him? A point-per-game man from the blueline when he played, Dudas literally wore out former trainer Travis Friesen and it’s not hard to wonder if Friesen’s resignation had anything to do with throwing up a white flag over Dudas’s repeated injuries. Personal challenges -- “my head’s here, it’s where I am,” was how he put it prior to camp -- only added to the mountain.
That lengthy lead-in complete, here’s a detailed look at how this Cougars team is saddled coming out of the gate. Keep in mind that Trader Dallas Thompson, the general manager who has not been shy about pulling the trigger on deals, will have something to say before long that could be major, or not.
GOALTENDING
Anyone remember Daryl Reaugh? Anyone remember the season he spent as Grant Fuhr’s backup with the Edmonton Oilers?
Cyr is Grant Fuhr. Joel Danyluk is Reaugh.
Pencil Cyr in now for 60-plus starts. Anything less, and either Cyr’s been hurt or the coaching staff is wasting the last junior season of a goaltender who will go down in team history as at least equal to Chris Mason, Scott Myers or Billy Thompson. Giving Cyr 65 starts, and bringing out the shooter-tutor in practice so he can rest, isn’t a bad idea.
Cyr was 20-23 last year -- six of the losses were in overtime or shootout -- with five shutouts, and a rough month of February bumped his year-end numbers to 2.66 (goals-against average) and .904 (save percentage). Where he took the puck and ran with it was the playoffs, his coming-out party, standing on his head against Kamloops and outplaying Everett star Leland Irving in the second round. Those games can only have steeled him.
Danyluk -- he’s 17, he’s from Yorkton, Sask., he played midget hockey there last year, and he’s willing to open a gate and watch Cyr work. That’s all you need to know, because unless you take in the odd practice or get there early enough to see warm-up, pucks won’t be hitting him much. This is Cyr’s team, no questions asked.
DEFENCE
Wishart and Dudas. Kalvin Sagert, 20, and rookie Swede Patrik Magnusson, 19.
It’s an old, experienced, diverse, amply-sized and talented first four, one good enough to allow the Cougars to format a system that mirrors what the Kelowna Rockets did to near-perfection a few years ago -- limit the other team so much they take frustration penalties, then strike on the power play.
As much as Wishart and Dudas get the ink, Sagert might be the key. For those old enough to get the analogy, he’s Lee Fogolin or Randy Gregg to Paul Coffey and Reijo Ruotsalainen on those great Oiler teams. Sagert is a solid citizen, a rock who gives the coaches a third No. 1 guy to use if the supposed stars get out of line.
Wishart had 11 goals and 49 points in 62 games a year ago, and it’s not hard to imagine him scoring 20 and topping 80 points. If he doesn’t, it won’t be for lack of icetime. This, of course, also depends on him being here -- whispers that he could be pried away by a contending team willing to give up a warm body up front and a first-round draft choice keep making the WHL rounds. What will be interesting to gauge is how Wishart responds to being relegated to last-defenceman status by Team Canada coaches for the Super Series. Was there a message from the world junior braintrust in how he was used (or not used)? If so, was it received?
Dudas has to make this season work, for the team and for himself. It’s his contract year, and the Columbus Blue Jackets scratched the dandruff off their skulls last year at the reports of his regression. Dudas had 27 assists in 32 games last season -- no fluke -- and how he plays this winter will go a long way to absolving the Cougars for the mistaken selection of defenceman Ryan Kerr first overall in 2005. Thompson traded Kerr, then 16, and Randy King to Lethbridge for Dudas and Sagert.
Magnusson is huge at six-foot-eight and 250 pounds, and if he’s even close to what Vladimir Mihalik was a season ago, the Cougars have a find. Zdeno Chara, Dustin Byfuglien, Mihalik -- if nothing else, this franchise is developing a reputation for finding tall trees.
The next wave makes this defence tick. Hulking 18-year-old Chris Vanduynhoven appears faster, less concrete in the skate boots, but the true test starts tonight. Garrett Thiessen continues to work on the thought processes required to be an instinctive defenceman, and it’s coming. Rookies Trevor Bauer (17), Artem Bidlevskii (16) and towering Wade Epp (18), just three inches shy of Magnusson, have earned the right to still be here, and the tough call could be coming for one of them. Carrying nine defencemen is not ideal, and it’s not the long-term plan.
New year, vastly different team
PRINCE GEORGE COUGARS OPEN REGULAR SEASON AT HOME TONIGHT
(Sports) Friday, 21 September 2007, 01:00 PST
JIM SWANSON Citizen Sports Editor
They’re gone. And must be forgotten.
For the Prince George Cougars -- and, indeed, their fans -- to form a belief that the coming WHL season isn’t worth weighting down and tossing into the murky Fraser, there has to be a sudden and discernable whitewashing of the recent past.
Yes, Devin Setoguchi was exciting. Yes, he had a strong cast of top-six forwards around him, most of them now graduated. Yes, he came at a cost - one that was, it’s hard to argue, worth the price, now and for the next three years.
When last we saw the Cougars -- and we’re not talking about that silly-season game against Kamloops two weeks ago -- they were acting as though Stan Butler was still at the helm. That is, they were bumbling, stumbling and grumbling through an insufficient regular season, at least based on the talent on the roster, then turning it up in a captivating playoff run.
There were too many things to remember fondly from those 15 playoff games. Sweeping the Kamloops Blazers beefed this city’s civic pride, particularly when three of the victories came in overtime and two of those were scored by native son Nick Drazenovic. Sweeping Everett in the second round -- OK, so the sweep appeared only after dropping two in a row in Silvertips territory -- was a bigger upset than the 1997 playoffs when the Cougars upended Portland in six games because Everett was the top-ranked team in the entire CHL. The Game 6 trouncing woke the building up again. It made the city believe, and there was no shame in losing the next series to the Vancouver Giants, because all that club did was go on to win the Memorial Cup.
(That was the second time in Prince George history the Cougars lost a playoff series to the eventual CHL champions. The other time? The 2001 first-round series loss to Kootenay that never should have been a defeat.)
Back on topic. This season. The one so many are projecting, with reason, to be a bust.
Gone are 304 points from last season. The top returning scorer, Dana Tyrell and his 30 goals, will be hard-pressed to match that number simply because he will no longer be skating with accomplished talents like Eric Hunter, Jared Walker or Drazenovic. Even granting Tyrell another 30-goal season, the fall-off after that is dramatic -- this year’s captain Greg Gardner had 16 goals, and that was heralded as a major breakthrough for him. No other returning forward scored more than eight times last season.
Is it any wonder why the offence is such a hot button item for this year’s team?
That’s the doom and gloom. The boom, that’s on the back end.
Real Cyr is here, and he’s a 20-year-old considered among the top netminders in the league. In front of him, the Cougars have the makings of the best defence in the WHL. No joke. The most important man for this team this year might be team shrink Dr. Max Offenberger -- get him in here quick, to work with the emotionally fragile parts of the roster.
Everyone knows Ty Wishart has the physical tools to be dominant, but last year he showed a real lack of urgency in his game that prevented him from owning the ice. When he was passed over for the final national junior team camp, he shut it down for a long time and did just enough to get by.
Then there’s Jesse Dudas. Remember him? A point-per-game man from the blueline when he played, Dudas literally wore out former trainer Travis Friesen and it’s not hard to wonder if Friesen’s resignation had anything to do with throwing up a white flag over Dudas’s repeated injuries. Personal challenges -- “my head’s here, it’s where I am,” was how he put it prior to camp -- only added to the mountain.
That lengthy lead-in complete, here’s a detailed look at how this Cougars team is saddled coming out of the gate. Keep in mind that Trader Dallas Thompson, the general manager who has not been shy about pulling the trigger on deals, will have something to say before long that could be major, or not.
GOALTENDING
Anyone remember Daryl Reaugh? Anyone remember the season he spent as Grant Fuhr’s backup with the Edmonton Oilers?
Cyr is Grant Fuhr. Joel Danyluk is Reaugh.
Pencil Cyr in now for 60-plus starts. Anything less, and either Cyr’s been hurt or the coaching staff is wasting the last junior season of a goaltender who will go down in team history as at least equal to Chris Mason, Scott Myers or Billy Thompson. Giving Cyr 65 starts, and bringing out the shooter-tutor in practice so he can rest, isn’t a bad idea.
Cyr was 20-23 last year -- six of the losses were in overtime or shootout -- with five shutouts, and a rough month of February bumped his year-end numbers to 2.66 (goals-against average) and .904 (save percentage). Where he took the puck and ran with it was the playoffs, his coming-out party, standing on his head against Kamloops and outplaying Everett star Leland Irving in the second round. Those games can only have steeled him.
Danyluk -- he’s 17, he’s from Yorkton, Sask., he played midget hockey there last year, and he’s willing to open a gate and watch Cyr work. That’s all you need to know, because unless you take in the odd practice or get there early enough to see warm-up, pucks won’t be hitting him much. This is Cyr’s team, no questions asked.
DEFENCE
Wishart and Dudas. Kalvin Sagert, 20, and rookie Swede Patrik Magnusson, 19.
It’s an old, experienced, diverse, amply-sized and talented first four, one good enough to allow the Cougars to format a system that mirrors what the Kelowna Rockets did to near-perfection a few years ago -- limit the other team so much they take frustration penalties, then strike on the power play.
As much as Wishart and Dudas get the ink, Sagert might be the key. For those old enough to get the analogy, he’s Lee Fogolin or Randy Gregg to Paul Coffey and Reijo Ruotsalainen on those great Oiler teams. Sagert is a solid citizen, a rock who gives the coaches a third No. 1 guy to use if the supposed stars get out of line.
Wishart had 11 goals and 49 points in 62 games a year ago, and it’s not hard to imagine him scoring 20 and topping 80 points. If he doesn’t, it won’t be for lack of icetime. This, of course, also depends on him being here -- whispers that he could be pried away by a contending team willing to give up a warm body up front and a first-round draft choice keep making the WHL rounds. What will be interesting to gauge is how Wishart responds to being relegated to last-defenceman status by Team Canada coaches for the Super Series. Was there a message from the world junior braintrust in how he was used (or not used)? If so, was it received?
Dudas has to make this season work, for the team and for himself. It’s his contract year, and the Columbus Blue Jackets scratched the dandruff off their skulls last year at the reports of his regression. Dudas had 27 assists in 32 games last season -- no fluke -- and how he plays this winter will go a long way to absolving the Cougars for the mistaken selection of defenceman Ryan Kerr first overall in 2005. Thompson traded Kerr, then 16, and Randy King to Lethbridge for Dudas and Sagert.
Magnusson is huge at six-foot-eight and 250 pounds, and if he’s even close to what Vladimir Mihalik was a season ago, the Cougars have a find. Zdeno Chara, Dustin Byfuglien, Mihalik -- if nothing else, this franchise is developing a reputation for finding tall trees.
The next wave makes this defence tick. Hulking 18-year-old Chris Vanduynhoven appears faster, less concrete in the skate boots, but the true test starts tonight. Garrett Thiessen continues to work on the thought processes required to be an instinctive defenceman, and it’s coming. Rookies Trevor Bauer (17), Artem Bidlevskii (16) and towering Wade Epp (18), just three inches shy of Magnusson, have earned the right to still be here, and the tough call could be coming for one of them. Carrying nine defencemen is not ideal, and it’s not the long-term plan.