By Aaron Schulze

Year in Review: Rebuild becomes unexpected contending year for Hawks

Jan 6, 2019 | 5:00 PM

The story of the Nipawin Hawks rebuilding after their 2018 Canalta Cup win as Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL) champions has been talked about many times in the first half of the 2018-19 season.

Nine of the Hawks leading scorers and their top defensive pair moved on after 2017-18, and only six fulltime players have returned for this season.

An SJHL leading 13 players who are 18 years or younger on the Hawks, and a rebuilding year would have been expected following a championship season.

37 games into the season, and the Hawks are first in the SJHL with 56 points (27-10-1-1). Life moves fast. While the Hawks ended 2018 with a loss to their rival Melfort Mustangs, they began 2019 with their first weekend series sweep of the Mustangs, outscoring them 12-4 in the process.

Doug Johnson, Hawks head coach, told northeastNOW his favourite part of the first half of the season has been the willingness of his mostly young players to get better.

Trades in Sask.

Skilled trades need not limited to building homes

Apr 17, 2024

Power outages

Several communities affected by power outages

Apr 17, 2024

UFA coming to Melfort

UFA to build petroleum site along Highway 41 in Melfort

Apr 17, 2024

“Obviously they’ve bought in to the system where we’re working hard night in, night out, giving ourselves a chance,” Johnson said. The goaltending has been outstanding. We wish we could generate a little more offence, we need to figure out how to score more goals.

“It’s not that we have a lack of skill, it’s just a lot of our skilled guys are younger and they’re still finding their ways. We hope it comes sooner rather than later.”

Johnson isn’t wrong with statement regarding goaltending. Declan Hobbs and Patrick Pugliese lead the SJHL in save percentage with .942 and .936 respectively, helping the Hawks boast a league low 70 goals against in 37 games (1.90 per game).

Even with the recent scoring outburtst against the Mustangs, the offence is still a work in progress with their 108 goals for (2.77) being the third lowest in SJHL.

Despite the goal scoring issues, Johnson is happy with how his young players have developed over the course of the season, as he never expected to be fighting for first place at this point in the season.

“I think they’ve been phenomenal,” Johnson said. “They’re very good people first, that’s the main thing. We can’t bring bad kids into Nipawin, it’s just too small of a town and my life’s too short to deal with kids who don’t want to work.

“They’re all very talented. Different, but talented. You’ve got a [defence] with guys that have some size like Cole Beamin and you have a smaller, quicker player like Andrew Smiley. Those guys on the backend have played some big and hard minutes for us and have done a very nice job.

“Up front we have size with a guy like (Eric) Sorensen and (Logan) Moon, the smaller quick guys like (Michael) Makarenko, (Brodie) Girod, and (Josh) Lester, then you have some [experience] with Tremblay and Flaman. It’s a nice mix and sets ourselves up very well for the future as well.”

That’s not including 16-year-old Jaxsen Wiebe who has 8 goals and 10 assists in 31 games.

With a chance at back-to-back championships now appearing to be a legitimate, Johnson said the Hawks will look at what they could add at the Canadian Junior Hockey League Trade Deadline on Jan. 10, but won’t say if any move will be official.

The Hawks have one more test before final decisions at the trade deadline, as they host their division rival Flin Flon Bombers Tuesday, Jan. 8 at Centennial Arena.

aaron.schulze@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @SchulzePANow