New defensive system paying off for Petes
Petes have lowest goals against average so far in the OHL season
The most remarkable aspect of the Peterborough Petes’ early success is that they lead the OHL with the lowest goals against average.
Last season the Petes ranked 18th in the standings and GAA at 4.16 on 283 goals against. While it’s only 10 games into this season, the Petes sit first overall in the OHL standings and GAA at 2.50.
Most observers worried about losing goalie Dylan Wells and turning to a goalie in Hunter Jones with 15 games of OHL experience and unimpressive rookie numbers with a 5.14 GAA and .866 save percentage.
In addition, the Petes made no additions to their defence other than rookie Shawn Spearing while losing Matt Timms, Alex Black and Gleb Babintsev.
Jones currently leads the OHL with eight wins and his 2.22 GAA and .938 save percentage lead all goalies with five or more appearances.
New Petes head coach Rob Wilson came with a reputation for having strong defensive systems. He said reducing goals against was his top priority. The early success, Wilson said, has come from a lot of hard work.
“I haven’t been easy on them,” Wilson said. “I’m sure every one of them has gone home with some curse words in their heads for me. That’s fine. I’m not supposed to be here to make things easy for them. I’m here to challenge them and make sure our coaching staff challenges them every day. In the end, it benefits them.”
The systems are on charts on the video room walls as constant reminders. They are drilled into players daily in practice and video.
“We’ve worked on it from the minute we started and we continue to work on it,” Wilson said.
“We are nowhere near there. We are getting better but I still see a lot of holes. We’re going to keep working to get better.
“There is a long way to go and this good start means nothing more than that, it’s a good start.”
The players are adapting well, he says, and are reading and changing tactics within games. He’s completely overhauled team systems introducing some of his European influences.
“We have our forwards tracking all the way back which is important. Sometimes they’re puck retrieval guys, sometimes they’re coming for low support,” Wilson said.
“We’re really concentrating on making sure there are areas to put pucks. Sometimes the areas look risky and sometimes they are but we’re looking for areas and guys are supposed to be in certain areas.
“That’s helping our D corps. I don’t want to take away from those guys either. They are helping our goaltending.”
The defence are also encouraged to jump into the offence and “get out of your comfort zone,” said veteran defenceman Cole Fraser.
“We practise these things religiously,” Fraser said. “We work on our systems every single day. That’s a big part of why we are doing so well and execute so well.”
Fraser said Wilson set the tone on day one.
“Coming into this year all odds were against us,” Fraser said.
“Our first rounder didn’t report and that was a scary moment when we found out that wasn’t happening. We didn’t really know what we were going to do.
“As soon as Rob came in his message was, ‘I don’t care who is reporting and who is not. We’re going to play as a team this year and we’re going to win.’ With his attitude and the way we are bonding as a team and being teammates, we’re definitely sitting at the top just where we are supposed to be.”
Nick Isaacson sees several factors for the defensive turnaround.
“First of all, Jonesy has been unreal,” Isaacson said, “and I think it’s more about our systems. We’re all coming more toward the net instead of circling. Rob has done a really good job of telling us how to play our systems where we don’t give up any bad goals.”
Isaacson said there was a big learning curve but the team had lots of practice in the pre-season.
“Exhibition games were tough for sure because it was new for all of us,” he said.
“We’ve gone over it every day and we have our systems up all over the walls. They’re all in the back of our heads now.”
Wilson heard all the stories about how bad the Petes defence was last year. “Whatever” was his response. He can only work with the players he’s given and Wilson said perhaps they are proving they are better than people realized.
The early success is good for the players, says Wilson, but he’s fully prepared for challenges to come.
“It gives us belief,” Wilson said. “We’ll have some adversity. We’re going through some right now with injuries. We’ll have some with losses. It’s how you battle through them.
“Right now, they are battling for us and for themselves and they’re really showing they are a team. I’m really proud of their effort.”