With playoff hopes dashed, Petes go out with whimper
The end of the OHL season is just one week away and it feels like it can’t come soon enough for the Peterborough Petes.
A season that started out with so much promise – pre-season favourites in many publications, a brief visit to the CHL Top 10 rankings – will end with a ninthplace finish in the Eastern Conference and a lot of wondering where it all went wrong.
In these final games of the season, the team has been going out with a whimper, losers of seven straight games and extending their road futility streak to 20 games without a win. The Petes haven’t even managed to compete with the teams that surround them at the bottom of the standings, losing decisively to both the Erie Otters and Sudbury Wolves in the past 10 days.
It will make for a disappointing end to the season for the club’s graduating forwards. Peterborough native Logan Denoble has gone from being a 13th round draft pick by the Petes to a player who will likely finish with consecutive thirty goal seasons but without a chance to hoist an OHL championship trophy. Likewise, after coming here to be part of last season’s playoff push, Alex Black and Nikita Korostelev will see their OHL careers come to an early finish.
With the team officially eliminated from post-season contention, the team is playing for pride in these last three games and the final weekend represents one last chance for returning players to leave a positive impression heading into next season. In recent games, rookies Jake Partridge and Cameron Supryka have had the opportunity to make their mark in the Petes lineup as well.
If the final weeks have been a glimpse into the upcoming season, they may have left more questions than answers, particularly when it comes to the goaltending and coaching situations.
The team failed to make any significant gains with Andrew Verner replacing Jody Hull behind the bench, struggling to a 6-17-1-2 finish after the change, having managed a 16-20-2-1 record under Hull. Of course the comparison between the two isn’t an even one with the Petes’ best all-around forward Jonathan Ang departing at the same time as Hull.
The situation with goaltending for the upcoming season may be muddy as well. There have been rumours of the OHL allowing an exemption for overage goalies not counting against the maximum three allowed per team and also talk of allowing import goaltenders back into the league. The Petes have allowed the third most goals in the league, and while team defence plays a part in the diminished numbers from both goaltenders, it makes for an intriguing situation for the coming year.
There will be plenty of time to tend to next season and if there is an upside to the Petes stumbling to the finish line, it’s a higher draft choice in the priority selection and CHL Import draft. In the meantime, the Petes have three games this weekend to leave their mark on the 2017-18 OHL season.