Out with the regular season and on with the playoffs
By The Nelson Daily Sports
The Nelson Leafs started the 2014-15 Kootenay International Junior Hockey League season with the anticipation and excitement every team begins a new season having found a bright, young new coach.
However, the excitement turned quickly to shock when coach Matt Hughes promptly dropped a bomb on the executive by leaving days before the start of the season.
Oh, did we say before flying off to the Pursuit of Excellence Program Hockey Academy in Kelowna, Hughes put his John Henry on one of the worst schedules in team history as Nelson played nine of its first 11 games at home — that works out to almost 35 percent of the season at home before the season is even a month old.
Pushed into scramble mode, the Leaf executive did find their man in Dave McLellan.
However, this former Junior A skipper was so far behind the rest of the KIJHL, finding a competitive team was almost impossible.
But give McLellan credit, he, thanks to a solid returning core of defensemen, did manage to put a competitive team on the ice.
The only problem McLellan was better at coaching than the administration duties, as twice the Leafs were found guilty of using ineligible players — the second mistake costing the coach and GM an eight-game suspension to conclude the regular season.
Nelson was also penalized points in the standings, dropping the Green and White from a race for first or second in the division all the way to fourth.
And the injuries — did we say anything about injuries to several key players — a couple, which probably won’t play in the upcoming Murdoch Division semi final series.
The Murdoch semi starts Friday in Fruitvale against the high-flying Nitehawks.
But everything can now be tossed in the past as the Leafs embark on the huge challenge of knocking off the defending KIJHL, Cyclone Taylor and Keystone Cup champions of a year ago.
One more stat to add to the momentous task is the Beaver Valley franchise have sent Nelson to the golf course in three of the past four seasons.
“Firstly, we have to show up every game and stick to our systems and if we do that I believe we can knock them off,” said Leaf captain Aaron Dunlap on the key to an upset series win for Nelson.
“If we play our systems we’re a super hard team to beat and super hard team to play against.”
“I mean Beaver Valley is a great team, but I feel if we play our systems and everybody shows up to play it’s hard to play against us,” Dunlop added.
After starting out the season series against the Hawks with two wins in the first three games, including an 8-0 trashing in Fruitvale, Nelson has skidded against Beaver Valley, a franchise that traditionally starts slow and finishes strong.
The Hawks won the final five games — one of the wins Nelson was stripped of the points due to playing an ineligible player — to take the season series 5-2-1.
But every game down the stretch the teams played were very tightly played, with the Hawks winning by one goal.
“It seems like this year we haven’t got a lot of bounces so hopefully that turns in our favour and we get a couple in playoffs,” explained Dunlap, finishing the season with 19 goals and 26 assists — good enough for fourth spot in Leaf scoring.
“But I like our chances in playoffs,” Dunlap added. “Our team is ready to go and hungry because we’ve been knocked out by (BV) the last couple of years so we’re all ready to change that this time around.”
Nelson will be buoyed by the fact the head coach, and brains behind the Leafs, is back behind the bench.
“Ya I’m excited to be back,” McLellan said. “I’ve been looking forward to the playoffs since August.”
“When you start the season you’re always looking to get into the playoffs and we’re looking to have a good series against Beaver Valley.”
McLellan was almost jumping out of his shoes to find out that forwards Dylan Williamson and Aaron Brewer are scheduled to return to the lineup for Friday’s game one.
The addition of Williamson and Brewer gives McLellan three solid lines to toss at the Hawks — a luxury missing since, well, October.
The three lines go nice with the five-headed monster on defence — Robson Cramer, hard hitting Darnel St. Pierre, Austin Seaman, Patrick Croome and Brendan Smith.
Hometown hero Adam Maida gets the start between the pipes for the Leafs as Joey Karrer rests for the opener.
Nelson is definitely the underdog when the playoff series opens Friday.
But knocking off the Hawks, and advancing into the playoffs, would go a long way to shelving sour taste this season has been to Leafs and their fans.
