EDMONTON - Fresh off of his team?s charter flight home from the Memorial Cup, Derek Laxdal had a look to him that he?d lost touch with in the last few months. He was relaxed.
The Edmonton Oil Kings head coach is out of playoff mode, albeit a little sooner than he?d have liked, but he was in good spirits on Friday afternoon, finally able to take in the incredible run his team has had this season.
?You know what, we?re very proud of our kids. It was an outstanding season,? Laxdal said. The Oil Kings overachieved through the spring, surging through the Western Hockey League playoffs all the way to a Game 7, home-ice championship victory over the Portland Winterhawks. They punched a ticket to Shawinigan, Que. for the Memorial Cup, but ran out of gas at the national junior hockey championship tourney. Their 6-1 loss to the host Shawinigan Cataractes on Thursday night sent them home with a 1-3 record.
That?s the only losing record the Oil Kings were associated with this year. They went 67-22-3-4 this year in their run to the Memorial Cup, posted the best regular-season record in the WHL and won their first everything (playoff game, series, conference title and league championship) since re-joining the league in 2007. None of that was lost on Laxdal, who patrolled the executive flight centre at Edmonton?s International Airport, patting his players on their backs and making sure they were in good spirits.
?You go 67-22 and whatever it was. You ask me at the start of the season, ?Coach would you take that?? I?d say, ?Yeah, no problem,?? he said.
?You look at our organization three years ago, it was 16 wins going into 67 wins with playoffs and playing for the Memorial Cup, Western Hockey League champions, you know, what a season.?
On-ice skills aside, the Oil Kings greatest asset this season was their resiliency. Third period deficits were rarely insurmountable, highly-touted opponents didn?t intimidate and even after rolling through to the WHL final with one loss, a 2-1 Winterhawks series lead couldn?t break the Oil Kings.
?Our group has really matured in the last two years and you could see that, just the way we play and the way we carry ourselves and the way the players have developed,? Laxdal said.
?We?re going to be gone for 2 ? months now and when they come back we?ll go, ?Wow have they ever matured.? We saw it last year in our players, the Keegan Lowes, the Griffin Reinharts, the Mitch Morozes.
?We?re really looking forward to training camp in August and putting some new pieces into the puzzle. We know what it takes to win in the Western Hockey League, now we get to step back a bit and say ?What does it take to win a Memorial Cup?? and if you look at St. John, you look at London, you look at Shawinigan it?s three pretty good hockey clubs that were built for that tournament.?
While the coach wouldn?t take his eyes off of what was attainable during the team?s playoff run, he said on Friday afternoon that his team ? at an average age of 17 ? years ? was built to peak next season.
?Our goal at the start of the season was to get deep into the playoffs and winning the Western Hockey League, obviously you want to do that, but next year?s our year,? he said. ?We?ve got 20 of the 25 guys coming back and this year?s experience is only going to help us going into training camp, it will make it that much easier for these guys coming back. ?They?ve been there. Now there are no excuses for not being there (again), right? These kids coming back can take these experiences and move forward next year.?
coleary@edmontonjournal.com
Twitter.com/olearychris
? Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal
the game new hampshire primary hue jackson alabama football coachella 2012 line up lsu crimson tide
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.