NEUGSIE’S AROUND THE SJHL: SEASON RECAP – TEAMS 5-8
By: Jamie Neugebauer
Voice of the Notre Dame Hounds
With the book on the 2019-2020 Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League season truly closed with the virtual Melfort Mustangs championship in the virtual Canalta Cup final, (which was awesome, by the way) I felt it was finally time to reflect on the season that was.
The format is simple: in order of how the regular season ended, from worst to first, I’ll give my thoughts on each team’s campaigns over three columns, and in groups of four.
Here the second of three pieces. Check out the first recap here: https://rodpedersen.com/neugsies-around-the-sjhl-examining-worst-to-first/
8. Nipawin Hawks (30-24-3-1, 64 pts): Don’t let the eighth-place seeding fooling you, this was a very, very skilled Hawks team. Like most Doug Johnson teams, they were very stingy defensively too (they gave up a league third-best 170 on the regular season), and especially once they settled on wunderkind Ross Hawryluk in net. But while it wasn’t a bad year in Nipawin by normal standards – 30 wins is usually a pretty good number – the standards of Hawks’ fans are not normal with the great teams they’ve had over the years. I have no idea why such a loaded group of players, with no fewer than 10 guys over the course of the year that I would consider legitimate Top 6 SJHL forwards, had so much trouble scoring goals, putting in the seventh most in the league in the regular season (as a fascinating aside though, the one playoff team they did score more than were the Melfort Mustangs). People often point out that Johnson’s system can appear to ‘hold back’ supremely talented kids like Jake Tremblay – who I believe is easily as good as anybody in the SJHL – and Jordan Simoneau, but it seemed like a perfect fit for Michael Makarenko, a scrappy kid, who can skate, and most importantly, wants to be in your face all day. The enigmatic junior career of the monstrous Simoneau is over, which is certainly a loss for the league, as the 1999-born winger was nothing short of dominant on his day. On the back end, DJ got a lot out of Max Johnson and Jake Lenchyshen, but not enough from anyone else. Will Nipawin finally be in a full-on rebuild next season? It looks that way from here, but who can ever say with a classy organization like that.
7. Humboldt Broncos (28-21-7-2, 65 pts): Plucky, and young, as their boss Scott Barney loves to admit, but they could also fly and had excellent experienced leaders in Graysen Cameron, Logan Foster, and Doug Scott (when the latter came in). Their power play was fantastic all year, and only got deadlier when they managed to bring back the puck skills and vision of the previous campaign’s rookie of the year, Luke Spadafora, from Melville mid-season. There is a lot to like, and find absolutely frightening moving forward about this team if they can stick together, as the growth of Tristan Shewchuk and Logan Kurki, young skilled guys who needed to figure out how to produce at the junior level, was impressive; both can be around for two more seasons. Karter McNarland, only a 2003-birth year, was critical and logged important minutes all year, but if he can put some meat on his bones looks like a kid that can play at any level of junior hockey that he choses (on a side note, neither the USHL or NAHL took him in their draft this summer…do they think he’s got the WHL on his mind and heart, where his rights belong to Kamloops?). The Broncos were very consistent in their performances, but not always in their results, and that understanding on how to win more often can sometimes come with experience. They do need to figure out their goaltending as that was all over the map this past season, though I have nothing but faith in Barney, and his lieutenant Curtis Toneff, to find solutions (is it that Charles-Anthony Barbeau kid they signed in April?). If you’re a Humboldt fan, take advantage of the time Barney is in charge there – to me he has the look of a guy on the up and ups.
6. Estevan Bruins (31-23-3-1, 66 pts): It was crazy to think that while the Bruins went 10-2 to end the season, there was a time they weren’t even in the playoffs. Performance-wise they were the 1b best team in the league in the new year (Melfort was 1a, in my opinion), starting with absolutely out of this world goaltending from Keenan Rancier, who never seemed to get tired despite playing about a million more minutes than any other tender in the league. Eddie Gallagher really started to show the promise that wowed everyone paying attention to Estevan training camp two years ago, while in the likes of Griffin Asham-Moroz, Brady Nicholas, Troy Hamilton, and Cody Davis, new bench boss Jason Tatarnic has a great crew to be the core for his Centennial Cup hosting team in 2022. Certainly, the departed Chris Lewgood did a masterful job at the helm of this organization, and his team matured impressively by the time the calendar hit 2020, with discipline much improved (though the Bruins will never be the kindest team in the SJHL), a much more consistently healthy D corps with all sorts of WHL experience, and an electric, quick-strike forward group. If you were to pick Estevan as the Canalta Cup champs for 2020-2021, I would say it’s early, but you could do much worse. Boy, is Rancier good.
5. La Ronge Ice Wolves (33-19-3-3, 72 pts): What a job by SJHL Coach of the Year Kevin Kaminski for rebuilding this once proud organization!? They won 12 games in 2018-19, and as you can see, they did much, much better this year. The small rink they play in fit the supremely talented finisher and veteran Daylon Mannon to the tune of 80 points in 58 games on the campaign, but I was really happy to see a bunch of quality holdovers, the most important of which being Jake Gudjonson, benefit from having some better players around them. Bringing in elite two-way defenceman James Philpott from Melville was the best move anyone made all year, and with a group that could include a core of Philpott, Kyle Ford, Aaron Greyeyes, Nolan Doell, and Holden Knights next year, they are pretty set up moving forward as well. They won games all different ways, scrappy when they needed to, offensively flashy at other times, it was an impressive unit, and I thought they could have given some of the biggest guns a big problem deep in the playoffs if the virus had not come (and if they had gotten by Yorkton, which wasn’t at all a sure thing either). Still, it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows in La Ronge: they were the oldest team in the league last year, so there are a lot of holes for Kaminski to fill by necessity. Very happy for a great community up there either way to be off on such a great start. They won’t be surprising anyone next year!
Note: All comments about players next year may be completely moot as one never quite knows who will move on from year to year!
(Follow Jamie on Twitter at @Neugsie)
