Hinz receives warm welcome from the Petes
Brady Hinz was disappointed to leave the Sarnia Sting but he felt better about his trade to the Petes when he got to Peterborough.
The Petes acquired Hinz and two draft picks in exchange for Jonathan Ang on Monday. He makes his debut with the Petes on Thursday against the Guelph Storm, at 7:05 p.m. at the Memorial Centre, wearing jersey No. 27.
“I was maybe a little sad at the start because I made a lot of special relationships in Sarnia and I really liked it there,” said Hinz, the Sting’s third-round draft pick in 2016, “but it’s started off great here. I’ve made a lot of new friends and I’m really excited to get going.
“All the guys are really welcoming to me and the coaching staff and whole organization and definitely my billets.”
He’s leaving a third place team in the Western Conference to join a ninth place Eastern Conference team fighting for a playoff spot.
“We have a pretty good team here,” Hinz said. “The standings don’t say much. We have a lot of winnable games here and we have to make the most of them.”
Hinz, who was OHL player of the week in mid-October when he recorded nine points in three games, sees himself as an offensive player. He is two years younger than Ang and has similar scoring statistics at the same point in their careers.
“I’m just going to try and play my own game and just play how i can and hopefully it pays off here,” he said. “I think I’m a skilled forward, pretty fast and have good vision.”
Interim head coach Andrew Verner will place Hinz on a line with Zach Gallant and Pavel Gogolev.
Verner is happy to see the trade deadline pass so he and his players sole focus can be on the rest of the season.
“Every time we look at the group we think there are some pretty good players there,” Verner said.
“We need more from certain guys and that was the message today now that the deadline has come and gone. There were some trades to be had, and I sat in on them, but you were giving up more than you were getting. They wanted players back off our active roster that you’re not prepared to give up for what you feel you’re getting back. Our goal here is to get improvement from our key guys and the continued development of some of our young guys. We need some of our older guys to be more consistent.”
Verner has moved Nick Robertson onto a line with Chris Paquette and Nick Isaacson while Semyon Der-Arguchint-sev centres Logan DeNoble and Nikita Korostelev. The fourth line consists of Bobby Dow between Chad Denault and John Parker-Jones.
“I kind of like the balance on our lines right now. I think there should be offence from that,” Verner said. “The rest will be what we try to do structure-wise and accountability wise in trying to get everybody going in the same direction.”
NOTES: Declan Chisholm started skating Monday as he works his way back from a high ankle sprain. He’s still a little ways away from returning but, ”He’s closer than he is further away,” said Andrew Verner .... Adam Timleck has not resumed skating with an upper body injury. Matt McNamara (upper body) had a full practice on Wednesday and is day-to-day .... Thursday’ s game is Girls Hockey Night and sponsor Reliance Home Comfort will give the first 1,500 fans through the door a Reliance water bottle and re-usable grocery bag .... See more Petes coverage on Page C6.