Daunting weekend looms large for Vees with home-and-home against defending champion
Penticton certain to be shorthanded against Wenatchee due to injuries, suspension and WJAC auditions
The Penticton Vees face a huge challenge this weekend as they try to hang on to first place in the BCHL’s Interior Division.
Playing the defending BCHL champions and recently red-hot Wenatchee Wild is daunting enough at the best of times. Unfortunately, the Vees will not be able to ice anywhere near their best lineup for the games Friday in Wenatchee and Saturday at the South Okanagan Events Centre.
Fred Harbinson is saying and doing all the right things to get the depleted Vees ready to face a Wild team that has won six straight, nine of 10, and have edged within three points of the Vees in the Interior.
“We’re coming off a great month where we were able to win despite having some shorthanded lineups,” said Harbinson, the Vees’ GM/head coach, whose team has gone 11-2-0-1 in their last 14 games. “We’re just going to have to roll up our sleeves and take it as another big test, another big challenge. We’ve got to be the smartest we’ve been all year . . . there’s not a lot of room for error.”
The only room may well be on the Vees’ bench, where Penticton conceivably will have just seven regular forwards in Eric Linell, Luke Loheit, Andre Ghantous, Ryan Sandelin, Jack Barnes, Jackson Niedermayer and Cassidy Bowes.
On defence, the Vees will likely just have five bodies: James Miller, Jack Lagerstrom, Carson Kosobud, Kenny Johnson and seldom-used Kelvin Hair.
At least both goalies Jack LaFontaine and Derek Krall are available. Krall has two assists in nine games. Just sayin’!
Starting on the injury front, the Vees will be without forwards Brendan Harrogate and Drew Elser, and defencemen Peter Muzyka until at least after the Christmas break ends on Jan. 4. Harrogate and Muzyka will ultimately be back, but Elser (concussion) could be out for the season, joining talented blueliner Conner Hutchison who is sidelined with a torn knee ligament.
The veteran Harrogate, who can play wing or centre, will be sorely missed. He has been in and out of the lineup since suffering an upper-body injury that worsened after he took a hit in Trail on Friday.
“We just decided it’s best to shut him down until after Christmas, get him at or near 100 per cent,” said Harbinson. “We don’t want (the injury) to keep re-occurring.”
Muzyka was to have the wires removed from his broken jaw on Tuesday but the coach anticipates he’ll probably have to go another three weeks with no contact before practising in full.
There is a suspension, too, the timing of which couldn’t have been worse.
Forward Lukas Sillinger, playing for the first time since Oct. 10 due to injury, was given a major penalty for a check to the head in the third period Saturday against Trail.
It was a dubious call to say the least, but Harbinson said the Vees don’t have the option of appealing the minimum (four-game) suspension.
So Sillinger won’t play this weekend or in next weekend’s home-and-home versus Trail.
The Vees also have four players — forwards Massimo Rizzo, David Silye and Cole Shepard, and defenceman Mason Snell — attending the Canada West team tryout camp in Calgary that wraps up today.
Players who make the team will miss the next four Vees games to play in the World Junior A Challenge starting this weekend in Bonnyville, Alta.
Early word is that veterans Rizzo, Silye and Snell are virtual locks to make the team.
Rookie forward Shepard has been red-hot of late but at age 16, his time may be next year.
It would be disappointing for Cole, but he’d certainly be getting a lot more ice-time if he returned to Penticton for this coming weekend’s games with Wenatchee.
The Vees have also been without Miller and Ghantous in practice this week as both are on college visits, though they will be back for the weekend.
The Vees, meantime, have a cavernous hole down the middle where only Jack Barnes has regularly being playing centre. Bowes will almost certainly move to the middle where he has plenty of experience.
Harbinson has been reticent to force-feed any of his midget or Junior-B affiliated players to take on significant minutes at the BCHL level, and admitted he is hesitant for this weekend as the Vees face arguably the deepest offensive team in the league.
The coach had expected to know more about the Canada West situation Tuesday evening.
“We’ll see where things are at and that will dictate what we do for the weekend,” said Harbinson.
He might as well include next weekend as well, since none of the injured, suspended or missing players are projected to return for the home-and-home with Trail on Dec. 14-15.
Penticton figures to get Sillinger and the Canada West contingent back for the home game against Vernon on Dec. 19 and the home-and-home with West Kelowna on Dec. 21-22 before the Christmas break.
If the Vees can at least come out of this difficult stretch with three or even four wins out of the seven games, they’d be very much in the hunt for an eighth straight Interior pennant once January rolls around.
And it’s not just about winning games (and a pennant) in January and February, it’s about actually getting some practices as a group before the stretch drive to the postseason.
“That’s been a problem for sure, because at this level you need the teaching time and the practice to improve and develop your individual and team game,” said Harbinson. “We’ve had a lot of days and weeks where we’ve been missing eight or nine guys from practice and that makes it difficult to implement a lot of the things you need to be doing. So we’re hoping to be able to get a lot of quality practices as a group starting in January to prepare us for the most important part of our season.”
In the meantime, Harbinson is calling on Vees fans to rally behind the squad in these last four home games before the holidays, and in particular this Saturday at 6 p.m. for Teddy Bear Toss Night against Wenatchee.
“Our fans have been great, but we really do need everyone in the community to step up for us, help propel us forward against a very tough opponent,” said Harbinson.
“We’ve given everything we have on the ice and in the community, and this is where we need that little extra push from our fans.”
NOTES: With Silye poised to miss the next four games, the Vees have only six skaters: Lagerstrom, Miller, Barnes, Sandelin, Niedermayer and Linell to have played in all 31 games this season (Linell has actually played 33 since he joined the Vees in a trade from Surrey). Ghantous has played in all 26 since being acquired in an early-season trade.
David Crompton is a sports reporter at the Penticton Herald. Email: david.crompton@pentictonherald.ca.