The Sherwood Division has been the powerhouse of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL) for the past two seasons and despite three of its teams losing a few key pieces there is a good chance another club from up north will take home the Canalta Cup at the end of this campaign.
The Flin Flon Bombers, who fell 4-2 to the Melfort Mustangs in the SJHL final last season, begin 2016-17 with seven returning defencemen and both of the goaltenders that helped lead the team to a 30-20-0-4 record last year. The Bombers did lose their top three scorers to graduation after last season, but the club has made a few trades over the summer months to try and replace that depth.
“We’re balanced in all three positions,” said Mike Reagan, head coach and general manager of the Bombers. “Our forward group, we should have more scoring depth than we did last year. Our back end, it’s just matured and it’s that much older. We’ve got four 20 year olds on the back end with three or more years of junior experience. And then, again our goaltending (with) Zach Robidoux, a 20-year-old who won a national championship, and Brendan Newton who was stellar for us last year and made it to the SJHL all-rookie team.”
Reagan said playing in the Sherwood Division is very tough and a successful season for them begins with a better start than the 3-10 record the team compiled at the beginning of the last campaign. He said they have a 10-game series against the La Ronge Ice Wolves this year and a strong showing against their division rival will also determine a lot about the character they have.
“It’s a grind, so we’re going to have to obviously play them well throughout the year,” he said. “If we can do that I think that gives us a better chance to be in the upper part of the standings.”
The Ice Wolves made the SJHL playoffs for the first time in three years last season, but they’ll have a tough task hitting that mark again with their starting goaltender Kris Joyce and top-two leading scorers Cole Porter and Matthew Painchaud leaving the team in the off-season. The Ice Wolves blue line does appear to be a strength heading into the season with five defencemen coming back to the club including their leading point producer from the back end in Bryce Fiske.
The 2015 and 2016 Canalta Cup champion Melfort Mustangs have also suffered a number of subtractions from their roster including SJHL leading scorer Travis Mayan and starting goaltender Richard Palmer. The club is returning backup netminder Evan Plotnik who saw plenty of action in the SJHL playoffs this past spring when Palmer went down due to injury as well as high-scoring forward Dakota Boutin and SJHL defenceman of the year Eric Sinclair.
Doug Johnson, head coach and general manager of the Nipawin Hawks, said they’ll be facing the Mustangs 10 times this season. He said that schedule helps them financially because home games against Melfort draw bigger crowds, but it also poses a problem because it seems that their rival has a strong team every year.
The Hawks have lost their top five leading scorers from last season due to graduation, defections to other leagues and trades, but the club is returning starting goaltender Kristian Stead, three guys on the back end and the team has picked up two veterans from the Kindersley Klippers in forward Tanner Thompson and defenceman Boedy Donald to help them through the early-season growing pains.
“Our goal is to try and win a championship and I think that is every team’s goal (and) sometimes they’re realistic and sometimes they aren’t, but we believe we have the horses to at least try and get there,” said Johnson. “If it comes to fruition or not the daily goal is to work hard every day, get better every day, make sure the guys enjoy coming to the rink and enjoy doing what we preach.”
