Injuries hampered Petes: Hull
After two month slide, head coach says Petes are capable of getting back in the race again
Jody Hull knows his team is capable of better results than their current record reflects ... when it is healthy, he says.
Through the first month of the season the Petes were healthy and they rocketed out of the starting gates with an 8-2 record which placed them atop the OHL’s Eastern Conference. With a strong cast of returning players off a team which placed first in the conference’s regular season standings last season, and reached the conference playoff final, it was expected they would once again contend for top spot.
But a 7-15-1-1 record over the past two months has dropped the Petes to seventh place, 16 points behind first place Hamilton Bulldogs. They’ve lost seven of their last eight games and five in a row heading into the Christmas break at the season’s midway point.
“I’ve never been one to use excuses but it really hasn’t been a good stretch for us by any means as far as injuries are concerned,” Hull said. “Just when it seems like you’ re getting healthy and you’ re getting your team back you run into a couple of more situations where guys get hurt.”
Zach Gallant and Nick Isaacson went down in the same game and the snowball started rolling. At one point the Petes had five players who see regular ice-time out at the same time. There was one game where they were all back except for Isaacson and Nick Robertson and Bobby Dow were hurt in that game and sidelined for two weeks.
More recently, it’s been defencemen going down with Declan Chisholm lost for four to six weeks with a high ankle sprain, Cole Fraser out with an ankle sprain and Austin Osmanski suspended for two games. Fraser was suspended for five games a few weeks ago. It’s been more common than not over the past two months to be missing two, three or four players to injury at the same time.
That doesn’t excuse the fact, he says, some players are not living up to expectations or playing the way coaches expect of them.
“It’s difficult on everybody but you still have to battle and compete and do the right things as a hockey club,” he said.
At the same time, it does take its toll, he said.
“I look at our team compared to probably any other team in the league and I think we’re significantly higher,” said Hull, of the number of injuries. “We’re getting two or three guys at a time who are gone for five or six games. That’s where it adds up, the duration and number of guys.”
With 26 of their final 34 games against conference opponents Hull says there is plenty of opportunity to get back in the race.
“Those are the games where if you win you can really make some jumps,” he said.
“We just have to get back to playing a team game. I think we’ve gotten away from that. Unfortunately, that’s what happens sometimes when you lose some games in a row. You tend to veer off from that team game and try to be individualistic because you want to be the guy who turns it around. Sometimes that just makes it worse. We have to get back to doing things as a team.”
Hull has no doubt the group is capable of playing as a team.
“Look at how they played at the beginning of the year as a group,” he said.
“No players have changed other than we brought in one guy in Austin Osmanski to help out on the backend. Nothing else has changed. We were going along so good and then we ran into those injury problems and probably put a lot more stress on certain players than we would have had we had a full lineup. When you start to get worn down a little bit it starts to creep into the game and you start making more mistakes. Other teams are capitalizing on our mistakes.”
Petes players will return to Peterborough for practice on Dec. 27 and return to action on the road Dec. 28 against the Guelph Storm. Their next home game is Dec. 30 against the Ottawa 67’s.