The Cochrane Generals open their best-of-3, survivor-series showdown with the Strathmore Wheat Kings tonight (Feb. 20) in Strathmore.
Following their season-ending 6-3 Heritage Junior Hockey League (HJHL) win over Strathmore, the Generals enter the playoff series on a high note against the team they have to beat twice in a playdown to see who faces league-leading Okotoks in the next round.
“It’s a clean slate,” Generals head coach Ken Soloski said following Cochrane’s victory over the visiting Wheat Kings Feb. 15 at Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre. But he cautioned against reading too much into the convincing victory heading into the post-season against Strathmore.
“They didn’t have a lot to play for,” he said of Strathmore, which already had fourth place nailed down in HJHL Southern Division standings and just seven players on the bench in the Feb. 15 regular-season finale against the Gens. “They didn’t give us their best effort.”
The Wheat Kings get home-ice advantage against Cochrane for their best-of-3 playoff opener, and it’ll be a more complete Wheat Kings team tonight, 8 p.m. puck drop, at Strathmore Family Centre.
“Both teams are pretty evenly matched,” Soloski cautioned. “I think their power play is a little stronger than ours. I think our 5-on-5 is better than theirs and I think the goalies match up pretty good.
“It should be a good series.”
The teams squared the regular season at 2-2, with the teams taking their wins at home and Strathmore out-scoring Cochrane 16-14 over the four games. And home ice should give Strathmore an edge, as the team plays on a larger Olympic-sized rink compared to the NHL-dimension surfaces other HJHL teams like Cochrane play on.
The Generals are unfazed.
“You just get more ice to deal with,” insisted Generals captain Jason Labelle, who finished fourth in team scoring with 12 goals and 40 assists in 37 games. “You get more time for yourself, which is kind of nice.”
Soloski is also confident the Gens can handle the larger ice surface, which is the same length (200 feet) as their rink but 15 feet wider (100 feet instead of 85).
“It slows the game down,” Soloski observed. “It takes a little bit of the physical play away. If you actually look at it, there are less goals scored in a big rink than there are in a smaller rink. It takes a lot longer for things to develop and it gives you a lot more time to recover. You just don’t see a lot of goals. It’s a different game.”
But not that different.
The players will still be pursuing the same black disc around the frozen surface, attempting to deposit it into the opposition’s net.
The goal nets are the same size and the players are the same. And Soloski likes the way his team is playing right now.
“As long as you execute, and play the way that you’re playing, you’ll win. We’re playing no-excuse, execute hockey right now. And it’s working.”
The team grappled with injuries throughout the season and, at times, a fluid roster that saw a platoon-load of Bow Valley Timberwolves AA Midget affiliate players ride to the rescue for long stretches.
Goaltending was also a bit of a revolving door, with the Generals finally settling on Matt Shawchuk and Grayson Sharpe. The Gens finished the regular season at 15-18-4-1 and scored just one more goal than they allowed over the 38-game schedule.
But none of that concerns Labelle, who’s just looking forward to the start of the series against Strathmore.
“Going into the post-season you want to keep it simple,” he surmised.
“You want to dump and chase, and hit.”
And if the Generals do that: “We got it. We’ll take them. That’s what I think.”
