Ready for the post-season dance
Wildcats to play quarter-final with Yarmouth Mariners
jason.malloy @saltwire.com @JasonMa47772994
Luke Wilson has played five seasons of junior hockey but has never suited up for a normal playoff series.
That changes March 25 when the Valley Wildcats’ captain leads his squad into the Maritime Junior Hockey League quarter-finals against the Yarmouth Mariners.
“It’s been a tough few years … with COVID and stuff. I’m super excited to actually get a real shot at a real playoff series,” said the 21-year-old Bedford resident. “It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Wilson played his first two junior seasons with the rebuilding Saint John Sea Dogs, who missed the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League postseason in 2018 and 2019. He was on a stacked Chicoutimi
Sagueneens team when COVID-19 struck in March 2020, derailing what could have been a championship run.
“I think we could have won the whole thing,” Wilson said.
Valley played three games in a round-robin play-in series last year, but the league was unable to get through the full playoffs due to COVID.
That’s all in the past now and Wilson is concentrating squarely on the present.
“I think we have a really, really strong team and we’ve been playing really well near the end of the season,” said Wilson, a six-foot-one, 180pound centre. “I’m really confident in our group and I think we have a really good chance to do something special here.”
It won’t be easy, though, as the fourth-place Wildcats (19-16-2-1) draw the Eastlink South Division champion Mariners (23-8-4-1).
“We’ve dealt with the injury bug for most of the year, especially the second half,” said
Wilson, who will graduate from junior after this season. “I think our record definitely doesn’t show how good we are. We know that we’re going to be in for a battle, but I think we’re all ready.”
Wildcats’ head coach Brandon Benedict said his charges are ready for the challenge.
“We need everybody. We can’t have any passengers at all. … We know for us to have success we need a full team effort,”
he said. “I think the guys are excited to get ready for Game 1.”
Yarmouth scored a divisionleading 144 goals while allowing the fewest (100). Their top scorers are Sam Gillis, Reilly Mayne, Kurtis Lang and MaxAntoine Melancon.
They also have a deep blue line with Ben Roode, Michael McQuaid, Kaleb Boudreau and Kieran Burke and good goaltending in the tandem
of Christophe Beluse and AJ DiChiara.
“They have a really good D corps, and their goaltending is very solid,” Benedict said. “There’s a reason they finished where they finished.”
The Wildcats also have some key players led by their captain, who has played his best hockey down the stretch.
“At the end of the day, we need our horses to be our horses and Luke certainly did that over the last couple of days,” Benedict said earlier this week. “He was good on the power play, he was good five on five, he was good on the PK, he was good in every situation.”
The Wildcats won their last two games of the season on home ice against Edmundston and Yarmouth. Wilson said the shootout win against the Mariners was “huge” for the team’s confidence.
“It’s always nice to finish on a high note,” Benedict said, “but we know that playoff hockey is a completely new season and a completely new challenge.”