Despite dismal season, Petes GM’s job is safe
The Peterborough Petes board of directors has faith in general manager Mike Oke and has given him the autonomy to hire a head coach and shape the team’s future over the next two years, says president Dave Pogue.
In the wake of a disappointing 2017-18 season in which a team expected to compete for an Eastern Conference title missed the playoffs, change is inevitable. One change was made in January to fire Jody Hull and name Andrew Verner as interim head coach. The change will not extend to the GM’s job.
“Mike Oke is 100 per cent safe,” Pogue said.
“We’ve been very pleased with Mike’s ability to draft in the last few years. His drafts have proven to be good and drafting is a very difficult procedure. Not only are you dealing with agents and the NCAA but you’re also dealing with players at the age of 15 our scouts and general manager believe will develop at a certain pace.”
One might question why more wasn’t done to improve the team’s defence which was a source of concern heading into the season. Pogue said he knows Oke tried early in the season to address the defence over and above the addition of Austin Osmanski.
When teams were finally prepared to part with players like Cam Dineen or Jordan Sanbrook the Petes had fallen in the standings and Pogue said it no longer made sense to trade away some top young players to acquire them. Pogue said he believes Oke has proven he can pull off significant trades when it’s necessary, pointing to the acquisition of Hunter Garlent and Nikita Korostelev as examples.
“I think Mike has done well with his trades,” Pogue said.
“What some of the critics of Mike Oke don’t fully understand is the dynamics of trades. I hear a lot about what should of and speculation on why it didn’t happen. Until you’re actually in the room it’s hard to understand.
“The board has a lot of faith in Mike Oke. We like the direction of the team and the personnel he was putting towards the team. That’s why we gave him a twoyear extension. At this particular time Mike Oke has two more seasons to help continue to progress this team.”
Pogue said he can’t speak to what the board’s role was in past hiring of coaches, but he said it will be Oke’s decision who is the next coach.
“We are here to support Mike and challenge Mike but we do not tell him what to do,” said Pogue, who says it was Oke’s decision to fire Hull.
That’s not to say Oke is exonerated of any responsibility for the team’s poor results this season, Pogue said.
“I’m not exonerating Mike from what’s gone on on the ice this season. Mike has owned it himself. We’re all responsible. Everybody has had to do a lot of soul searching to understand why.
“When we went into the season we really believed we had a roster that, with some good trade deadline moves, was going to contend for a championship. We got out of the blocks and it was right on course.
“We ran into some major injury trouble with some key personnel all at the same time. That understandably was a hiccup but we should have come back from that and picked up where we left off. That’s where everything went sideways.”
It became apparent, said
Pogue, the team did not have the same type of leadership as last season.
“Last year we had a group that pulled and played for each other with an incredibly strong leadership group. When the going got tough, they got tighter,” Pogue said.
“This year, it appeared midseason or a third of the way through something wasn’t right.”
It came out in year-end meetings, Pogue said.
“The answers we’re getting is that we weren’t unified. As the season went on it started to unravel further. That’s a combination of characters in the room who couldn’t gel.
“Not to single out our captains but I think there was difficulty in leadership in that room. I think the effort was there but they weren’t able to pull it together like they did the previous year.
“It will be Mike’s duty to fix some of the things we may have found to be problems. We have faith in him to do that.
“Everything is fixable and that will be done through drafts, possible trades, a fresh coach coming in with a full season. We have to get back to the culture we had last year.”
Pogue likes the 2000 and 2001 players like Pavel Gogolev, Semyon Der-Arguchintsev, Declan Chisholm, Hunter Jones, Nick Robertson, Cameron Supryka and others as a base to build around.
“We’re going to have the third overall pick in what we’re being told is one of the better drafts in the past few seasons,” Pogue said. “We could be in a lot worse shape.”
Off the ice, the Petes had the largest attendance increase in the league, by a significant margin. They were about 100 fans per game below their all-time best numbers in 2005-06.
“The really bright spot for the Peterborough Petes this year is what we’ve been able to do on our business side,” Pogue said.
“One is our partnership with the city to revise our facility agreement. By doing that we were able to make more use of the funds we generate. We invested them back in new people.
“We have a fresh young group in the office and they have paid great dividends.”
Sales are up in season tickets, group sales, sponsorships and game-night environment has improved.
“We’re really excited about the fact we’re already ahead of last year’s schedule in terms of renewal, both in advertising and season tickets.”
Pogue wants to assure fans things will also get better on the ice.
“We have a duty to make sure this team improves and we continue the momentum of what we’re doing off the ice,” he said.