ROSTER DEADLINE THOUGHTS

The December 1st roster cut down deadline has come and gone for all Junior A teams in Canada. The deadline forces all teams to get their rosters down to 25 while at the same time leaving as many cards as they can open in order to make some moves down the road before the January trading deadline.

If you haven’t heard already the Flyers lost four players and got two. Gone are Forwards Brett Suderman and Joe Becker, Defenseman Mitch Lutz, and Goaltender Michael Deslauriers. The additions are Forward Anthony Collins and Goaltender Carey Dyck. The trade for Dyck has made the most immediate impact with the injury to Peter Alexander and Dyck has proven to be a great addition to the Flyers crease.

Deslauriers, Becker, and Lutz were all considered import players. An import player is one that did not play the previous year in the province of Manitoba. Each team is only allowed to have eight imports on their roster at any given time so the three gentlemen I mentioned before are just victims of the numbers game.

Suderman on the other hand is a different story. Flyer nation sure does love their local talent and anytime one of them leaves the team it comes with mixed emotions. Brett was also a victim of the numbers game but in a different way. The Flyers now have 21 players on the roster and have four cards open in which to add some impact players before the January deadline, so in that regard they are right where they want to be.

As the December 1st roster cut down deadline approached Brett was asked about the possibility of being assigned to the Pembina Valley Twisters of the Manitoba Major Junior Hockey League. Doing this would allow the Flyers to keep his rights while keeping an extra card open and still have the ability to AP him up to 10 times throughout the rest of the season. He would still practice with the Flyers and would be able to get the ice time that he was wanting with the Twisters.

After considering that plan Suderman decided that he would rather play for a different team in the MJHL. The Flyers then granted him that request by sending him to Neepawa for the MJHL rights to Anthony Collins.

There are some who will be put off by the fact that the Flyers traded a local kid but at the end of the day what are we trying to do here? Are we providing a place for each and every local kid to play hockey or are we trying to win. By saying that I don’t mean that we can’t win by having local players I am just saying that sometimes you need to do things like this in order to improve your hockey club.

As of 12:01am on December the 2nd are the Flyers a better team and in a great position to get even better? Yes. Is Brett Suderman getting the chance to play more and produce more with Neepawa? Yes.

The window for opportunity for the Flyers is small. The crop of 20 year olds is better then it has been in many years. This is the year to go for it and sacrificing some of the future for the present is what they have to do. Making decisions like this are not made on a whim. There are a number of things that they take into consideration like how it affects the team on the ice and in the room. They also think of how it will affect their fans and the community.

Flyer fans have been screaming for a winner for many, many years and the people in charge are trying to make that happen. Sometimes in hockey you need to take feelings and personal things out of the equation and do what’s best for the whole.

I am glad truly glad for Brett that he will now get the opportunity to play more. He added that spark every once in a while that will hopefully be filled by someone else (see above picture). I wish him all the best in Neepawa. It is hard to say goodbye sometimes but its part of the business or sport.

Remember this is just my opinion. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think...