The Yorkton RawTec Maulers have officially wrapped up their 2015 SMAAAHL preseason with a 2-2 record following a 3-1 home ice win over the Parkland Rangers last Wednesday and a 4-2 loss to the defending SMAAAHL champion Regina Pat Canadians on Saturday.
But while they finished their four game exhibition schedule, head coach Graham Garrett believes that there are still many things that the team needs to iron out during the first month or so of the season. “With a new coach, new systems, new players and the fact that during the preseason we weren’t able to get any continuity between lines or anything like that, we have a lot of work to do here in the next week and the next month going forward,” offered Garrett, adding that throughout the preseason the Maulers were unable to continually ice the same team due to injuries and Team Saskatchewn U-16 tryouts. “We had some guys at the U-16’s this past weekend and we’ve had some injuries and some illnesses so we really haven’t been able to get a group together.
“Hopefully now that we’ve picked the team we can get a little bit more continuity between us.”
Selected for the 20-man roster to open the season are ten 2014/15 veterans including four returning defencemen in Austin Shumanski, Carson Sass, Cody Dubas and Tyler Stratechuk.
Offensively Derrick Budz, Tristyn DeRoose, Kylan Shea, Damian Bentz, Taylor Elmy and Drayson Skulmoski will return, while Brennan Watson will also return depending on how he recovers from shoulder surgery. “We’re going to try and leave a spot open for Watson in case he can come back,” mentioned Garrett. “If he can then we want him because he’ll be one of the top forwards in the league, but until then some of the new guys will have to step up.”
The new guys that Garrett mentions - forwards Carson Miller, Keenan and Kaedan Taphorn, Brett Kemp, Keanan Sperling and Beau Stevenson, defencemen Kaleb Bulych and Kaedan Korczak and netminders Jordan Schmuland and Alex Geddes – will all be given ample playing time at the start of the season with the hopes that they’ll be able to help replace the lost offence (as well as defence and goaltending) that Garrett and his coaching staff were not prepared to deal with due to several players putting together strong Junior camp showings. “We lost the Welke’s (Carson and McKenzie) and (Cole) Keenleyside to the Terriers this year, but when you have guys from Junior go up to Pro and guys from Midget go up to Junior all that does is open up a spot for a guy that just needs that opportunity,” said Garrett, continuing, “We’re hoping that we’ve got some guys that want to seize that opportunity and put pucks in the back of the net and get that offence going.”
The first opportunity the new guys will have to seize that opportunity will be Sunday when the RawTec Maulers open their 2015/16 SMAAAHL regular season at home against the Tisdale Trojans. Game time is set for 2:00p.m. at the Farrell Agencies Arena.
