After a disappointing 2015-2016 Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League season the Humboldt Broncos have been hard at work this summer making adjustments to the team to get them ready for the 2016-17 season.
This summer has been a different one than the last two for the Broncos as they finally have some stability behind the bench after the previous two seasons saw the organization under go a head coaching change.
While the team has enjoyed some stability off the ice the on-ice product has changed with many new faces being added into the fold.
The on-ice adjustments made to the roster are part of a rebuild that started during last season and has yielded some positive results, says Humboldt Broncos Head Coach Darcy Haugan.
“We fully committed to this rebuild so it’s been that seven, eight months of trying to rebuild this organization, and the team, and the depth charts and our 50-man protected list… it’s been a good seven, eight months and we feel we’re in better shape today than we were this time last year.”
The first domino to fall during last season’s rebuild was Greg Moro who was dealt to the Royal Bank Cup hosts, the Lloydminster Bobcats in exchange for players to be named later. After the Royal Bank Cup was over the Broncos received Morgan Messenger and Graydon Smith from the Bobcats.
Messenger was later traded to the Whitecourt Wolverines in exchange for Stephen Wack, and two players to be named at the conclusion of training camp. Wack is a 19 year old defenseman who split last season between the Camrose Kodiaks, and the Wolverines finishing with three goals, and seven assists, for ten points in 47 games.
Smith was also later dealt in a separate trade as the Broncos traded Smith to the Sherwood Park Crusaders for Luke Kempf. Kempf is a 20-year-old forward who spent his previous two seasons in Sherwood Park where he scored 11 goals, 16 assists, and 27 points in 99 games.
As part of the trade that sent former Humboldt Broncos captain Anthony Kapelke to Steinbach, the Broncos received Matthieu Gomercic from the Pistons. Gomercic is a 19 year old forward who spent the previous two seasons playing for the Pistons where he racked up 15 goals and 15 assists for 30 points in 83 games including 23 points in 55 games last season.
The Broncos also acquired 20-year-old Parker Wakaruk from the Grande Prairie Storm for future considerations. Wakaruk spent the last two seasons with the Storm where he scored four goals, and five assists for nine points in 110 games.
Haugan says the addition of the players will help fill specific needs within the roster.
“We want to improve our specialty teams and our penalty kill… we wanted to add some guys that could kelp us in that and we feel that with the additions of Kempf and Wakaruk that will definitely help us in that department…and we wanted to add some secondary scoring which we were able to do with Gomercic from Steinbach.”
Even as the calendar flipped to August the Broncos continued making adjustments to the roster as they acquired Dante Raposo in early August from the Prince George Spruce Kings of the British Columbia Hockey League in exchange for a player development fee. Raposo is an 18-year-old forward who played just 15 games with the Spruce Kings last season scoring one goal and two assists.
With the Broncos being so young last season and having so many ’97 born players, Haugan said it was important for them to fill in the roster with players whose birthdays fall on either side of ’97.
“Whether it’s some younger players, some ‘98s or ‘99s, definitely want to add to the mix that way but as well we have some room for some 20 year olds and as we felt that if we could find the right ones, ones that brought accountability to our hockey team, ones that could maybe check off a few boxes that we maybe feel we were deficient in last year.”
Haugan says he hopes the players can also bring some accountability and leadership to the team as well.
“I don’t think you can ever have enough leaders in your dressing room and enough guys that want to win and guys that are going to hold everybody accountable, which is really critical.”
It was also important for Haugan to bring in players to help ease the burden on the players who were on the team last season.
“We wanted to do everything in our power to add to the players that went through what we went through last year so that we could kind of reward those players for having to stick out last year and all the tough times that we went through.”
At this point Haugan says he is still keeping his eyes out for any players he feels could help the team but admits that he might have to be patient. It is important to not disrupt the chemistry between the players, he says.
“We don’t want to bring anybody in that’s going to upset the apple cart, if you bring in the wrong player or the wrong personality.”
Haugan likes the mix of players that they currently have as training camp nears. Some of that comes down to the stability of the organization, he says.
“When I got here August 17th we ended up losing our top center… whereas this year we’ve got our legit top center in Logan Schatz back and we have our depth through the middle, we’ve got set lines… there’s chemistry there already so there’s not as many questions to answer as there was this time last year.”
As for the players returning for this years team Haugan says it was important that they had a good summer and poured everything they had into their offseason training.
“It’s a group that had a lot of pride and we didn’t like what happened to us last year and we definitely want to right the ship and deliver some payback for some of the beatings that we took last year and tough lessons that we had to learn.”
With training camp running Sept. 1-4 and the season is not far away, Haugan says he is looking forward to the start of camp.
“I believe everybody’s mindset is right and it should be an interesting training camp and month of September as we start to get going.“
