A LOOK BACK AND A LOOK AHEAD

The Christmas break is upon us and it gives me time to look back at the first half of the season for the Winkler Flyers. The first 42 games of the season have been a grind. It has been a tough year so far for a variety of reasons. And when I say tough I don’t been bad, it’s just been tough.

One of the reasons is that of the 42 games that the Flyers have played so far this season, 24 of them have been on the road. The longest trips of the year to OCN, Swan Valley, and Dauphin are all done. The other team’s rink hasn’t been the most friendly place to play this season. The Flyers are 9-13-1-1 on the road with the bulk of those loses coming in the first two months of the season.

The other reason for the tough start was the injuries, especially to All-Star defenseman Caleb Suderman. He was in and out of the line-up to start the season after getting injured in pre-season. His permanent return midway through the first half of the season is one of the big reasons for the turnout to start the month of November.

The coaching staff also decided to move Jordan Peters back to defense just before Suderman’s return and since then the local pairing has been one, of if not the best D pairing in the league. The more then solid play of Peter Alexander in goal has been a huge bonus this season. He sports some of the best numbers among MJHL netminders with a 17-12-2 record with one shutout. A 3.16 GAA and a .916 save percentage. He has been the difference in a number of games between winning and losing and the tandum of him and Carey Dyck should give us little reason to worry the rest of the way.

All of those things combined and also a few key additions along the way have made the Flyers a completely different team from Nov. 1st on, and it shows in their record. Winkler started the season 8-12-2 and since their Halloween road trip to Swan Valley are 13-5-2.

The Flyers have proven that IF and WHEN they give it their all and play a 60 minute hockey game (or close enough) they can beat anybody. However, if that doesn’t happen they can lose to anybody. The goal and the challenge for the team and the coaches is to figure out how to do that game in and game out.

A few things are on the side of the Flyers coming into the New Year. 13 of the remaining 20 games are at home where they have a remarkable 12-4-2 record. 8 of those games are against sub .500 teams and 7 of them are against Sherwood Division teams so they don’t matter so much in the standings.

Now the January 10th trading deadline is coming up soon after the players return from their Christmas break where teams will finalize their 23 player rosters that they will take into the remainder of the season and playoffs.

As well as things are going for Winkler at the moment there are still some areas of concern. They are not tremendously deep on the blue line. We have seen when the big guys go down there is a bit of a drop off. And I know that big, puck moving defensemen don’t grow on trees but I would say that is the first area to try and improve.

Second is to try and find a legit top 6 forward or maybe even top 3 that can score. Someone who strikes fear into their opponent. Having a player like that will also open up opportunities for others to flourish with being not so much in the spot light or on the other teams radar so much. And the other thing is some toughness. Not necessarily a big idiot fighter but someone who stirs it up and is mean and a little “grey area” once in a while.

If you take a look at the Flyers roster in terms of the quality of the 20 year olds and the way the division is set up this season THIS is the year to make a push. Remember, these suggestions are just my opinion but if you want to get a top notch player you need to be willing to give something in return. I know and realize that is the worst part of the job for the decision makers but winning here and now is the bottom line.

The Orange and Black have 21 players on the roster right now which gives them 4 open cards. So if they use all 4 cards they will need to get rid of 2 players somewhere is the shuffle. Let me know in the comment section what you think should happen.

Recently, the Flyers have not been known as the team that pulls off the big deals, where people around the league and not just within the organization say “WOW, look at what Winkler just did”.

I hope that is the case this year.

Merry Christmas folks and we will talk again soon…

p.s.

just for fun here are some pics that Ray Peters (one of the team photographers) took of me while the Flyers were playing in Neepawa this month and the Flyers took 3 penalties in a row which would explain some of my facial expressions. It is also VERY cold in that arena which would explain the hat....enjoy!!