Petes look to pull off second-half magic
In the course of three days last week, the Petes said goodbye to coach Jody Hull and star player Jonathan Ang. Neither move came as a surprise, the team has failed to meet expectations, Ang is unlikely to return to the league next season and Hull was on the last year of his contract.
The season clearly has not gone as expected for the Petes and in making these two moves they are trying to right the ship, while not sinking it or turning it back around. While these were major decisions to make, the immediate effects are smaller, subtler changes.
In replacing Hull with his former assistant Andrew Verner, there is unlikely to be an immediate major philosophical shift. Rather we have seen small changes so far – more willingness to use all four lines, more activity and enthusiasm behind the bench and a clear focus on focusing on the positive.
Likewise, in bringing in Brady Hinz in place of Jonathan Ang, the Petes lose some of the immediate game breaking abilities displayed by Ang but acquired a player with some OHL success already, who can slot into Ang’s place as a top 6 forward and will be here for two additional seasons.
Hinz also fits in well with the Petes’ existing 2000-born group of players that also includes Pavel Gogolev, Semyon Der-Arguchintsev, Declan Chisholm and Hunter Jones, among others. This group should make up the core of the next Petes team that has the potential to advance deep in the OHL playoffs.
In terms of the current season, the Petes continue to show flashes of being a good team. The forward depth remains, Dylan Wells has shown signs of getting hot again. They were eleven seconds away from a perfect weekend and with Ang dealt, the offence now runs heavily through Nikita Korostelev, who has nine goals and 17 points in his past 10 games.
Four months of hockey have shown us that this to be a seventh place team that is closer to the bottom of the conference than the top. Kingston, Hamilton, Barrie and Niagara all have a significant cushion over the Petes at the top and each made major acquisitions at the trade deadline. A return to the conference final would require upsetting two of these teams.
The Ang for Hinz swap does well in serving both the present club and the future but by making it their only deadline move the Petes don’t fully commit to either. They could have taken things a step farther by trading more veteran players who like Ang will not return next season, to bring in additional young players and draft picks and open up developmental ice time for the future core players.
This would have meant making the difficult decision of sacrificing what still could be a good team down the stretch of this season and a potentially exciting playoff race for the goal of being a great team with a better chance of making a deep run down the road.
By mostly maintaining the current group, the Petes are betting on the coaching change unlocking the roster’s full potential. The Petes are a combined 7-5 this season against the top four teams, perhaps that bet will pay off and there is some second half magic in the cards.
Matt Campbell has been a Petes season ticket holder for 28 seasons. His column appears biweekly during the Petes season.