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A case of déja vu
By SEAN ROONEY
Sep 21, 2007, 17:23
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Three top-line forwards, two of them bound for the NHL. An MVP goalie. A team captain and your two best defencemen.
If you think the team described above could be none other than the 2007 Medicine Hat Tigers, you’d be entirely wrong.
Yes, this year’s team has lost nine players to the pro ranks, most notably playoff MVP goaltender Matt Keetley and captain Kris Russell. Darren Helm, Chris Stevens and Derek Dorsett were top forwards. David Schlemko was another top-line defenceman.
But remember all the way back to 2005 and you’ll find it was a similar story. No more Kevin Nastiuk in goal? Clarke MacArthur, Stefan Meyer and Jarret Lukin graduated? Captain Steve Marr and Cody Blanshan gone from the back end? Many prognosticators figured it would be a down year for the defending WHL champions.
It was, depending on how you looked at it. They didn’t win the title, but those Tigers were the WHL’s best team in the regular season and made it all the way to the conference finals.
Not bad for an off year.
Similarly, nobody’s predicting a repeat of this past year’s championship run, which concluded with a berth in the Memorial Cup final. Once again, there are some talented young players ready to step up. Tyler Ennis, Brennan Bosch and Daine Todd (who’s still a question mark as he’s still trying out for Norfolk in the AHL) are slated to be first-liners. Defencemen Jordan Bendfeld and Trevor Glass both attended NHL camps and will also move up. Goaltenders Ryan Holfeld and Tomas Vosvrda are unknown enough that it’s conceivable one or both will end up being No. 1-calibre players.
But can the four-time defending Central Division champions possibly keep it up?
“We’re a younger team, we know it’s a different team, we know we have to get a lot better,” said head coach and general manager Willie Desjardins on the eve of the season opener, 7 p.m. tonight in Lethbridge. “Right now do we have a chance to (repeat last season’s success)? No, we don’t. But as time progresses we hope to get to that point.”
Desjardins knows rookies don’t master a system in three weeks. He knows they’ll make mistakes.
The key, he says, is improvement.
“We have a lot of new faces in our lineup and I think habits are what win you hockey games,” he said. “We have new players that don’t have the habits that we need yet and maybe some of the older guys have lost some habits over the summer. We have to get better and that’s what we’re about.
“You have one goal when you start the season; you have a taste of it and you want to go. You don’t have to be the best team to get there. You can be a team that peaks at the right time, you can do a lot of different things.”
See today’s special section for more stories and previews for all 22 WHLteams.
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