Taking stock
Western Capitals head coach Billy McGuigan is already looking forward to next season.
“We have a great core group remaining, and obviously we lose some big pieces with our 20-year-olds. We are a team of the future, and next year a lot of our players are only going to be 18-years-old or 19. We have three good years ahead of us here.” Western Capitals head coach Billy McGuigan
Billy McGuigan sees a bright future for the Summerside D. Alex MacDonald Ford Western Capitals.
“We have a great core group remaining, and obviously we lose some big pieces with our 20-year-olds,” said the team’s head coach following a seasonending 5-1 loss to the Miramichi Timberwolves in the Eastlink North Division final series of the MHL (Maritime Junior Hockey League) on Friday night. “We are a team of the future, and next year a lot of our players are only going to be 18-years-old or 19. We have three good years ahead of us here.”
The 2016-17 edition of the Caps featured both youth and experience, and finished the campaign with six rookies playing regularly.
“I am real happy with our year,” assessed McGuigan. “We ended up in third place after basically rebuilding our team and bringing in a lot of
young guys.
“When you have five midgetaged players (Brodie MacArthur, Kallum Muirhead, Marc-Andre LeCouffe, Jacob Levesque and Brodie MacMillan) in the lineup every single night, it’s a tough grind in the Maritime Hockey League. “I’m pretty proud of them right now, I’m proud of their season and we came up against a good hockey club (Miramichi).”
Regular season
The Caps completed the regular season in third place at 25-22-0-3 (won-lost-overtime losses-shootout losses). They went on to defeat the secondplace Dieppe Commandos (2716-4-3) in a six-game series in Round 1.
“Obviously, there were a lot of positives out of this season,” said McGuigan. We had a young hockey club and, for the most part in the regular season, our young guys led us. But here, in the second part, it was your Brock Richards, Morgan MacDonalds, Tanner McCabes, Alex McQuaids, the veteran group that we had here who were your ham-and-egg guys, blue-collar boys. . . It was a team effort to win the first series, we didn’t think we were going to win that one.” McGuigan said the young players gained very valuable post-season experience.
“It is night after night, practice after practice, day after day,” said McGuigan. “How hard other teams play against you is a big learning experience for our guys.
“We needed to learn a lesson there as far as how much of a challenge it is to play hard, gritty every night.”
With three of the Caps’ top four regular-season pointgetters rookies – MacArthur (50 points), Muirhead (42) and TJ Shea (39), and sophomores but first-year junior-aged players Hunter McIntyre (36) and Jesse Annear (30) rounding out the top six in team scoring, McGuigan is optimistic going forward.