Since moving from Squamish to North Vancouver four seasons ago, the Wolf Pack junior B hockey team has charted an unmistakable course. It’s a straight line, and it’s heading up up up.
The team stayed the course last weekend when they registered a 3-3 tie against the Grandview Steelers, clinching their first ever regular season title. With the playoff pressure cooker looming, Wolf Pack head coach and general manager Matt Samson knows that there is a lot more work to be done this season, but he still took a moment to savour the accomplishment.
“(Finishing first) was one of the goals that we set out for this year,” he said. “It shows that we’ve definitely come a long way in our four seasons (in North Vancouver). We came fourth, we came third, we came second, we came first. . . . We don’t want to stop here, obviously. It’s a nice reward for our club though, for sure.”
There wasn’t much time to celebrate, however, as the playoffs are already underway with the Wolf Pack set to take on the Delta Ice Hawks in an opening round series for the third year in a row. Two years ago Delta swept the Pack out of the playoffs. North Van got their revenge last season, winning in six games to claim the franchise’s first-ever playoff series victory.
This season North Van racked up 67 points to finish first while Delta was fourth in the Tom Shaw Conference with 46 points. The season series between the two teams, however, was very competitive with the Wolf Pack winning three and Delta winning three, including one in overtime. Delta also had the most recent wins, beating North Van 7-4 on Jan. 27 and 3-1 Feb. 7.
“We’ve got a bit of a rivalry going,” said Samson. “They’re a team that has definitely come along, they’ve improved throughout the year. They’ve got a lot of rookies on their team. . . . In terms of firepower I think we’ve got a bit more than them, but some of those young guys have been putting the puck in the net consistently and they’ve obviously got some confidence as well.”
The Ice Hawks are anchored by a pair of 20-year-olds in forward Brent Chreptyk and defenceman David Rudin. Samson guessed his best forwards would be seeing a lot of the six-foot-four, 210-pound Rudin over the next couple of weeks.
“He’s probably going to play 30 minutes every night and match up against our top line. He’s a really good player,” he said, adding that Delta has a lot of big and physical defencemen.
“I think we’ve got to use our speed against them and we’ve got to try to match their physicality,” Samson said. “I think their game plan is to definitely be kind of rough and tough and be physical with us. . . . They’re going to frustrate us. Our guys know it’s going to be a battle. It’s not going to be a sweep or an easy series. We’ve got to come to work every night.”
With 50 points in 39 games, Chreptyk anchors a solid first line for the Ice Hawks.
“They’ve got a pretty good top line with him on it,” said Samson. “He’s a good shooter and he’s physical and he skates well. He doesn’t really try to be fancy, he just keeps it simple. He’s definitely a guy that we need to be aware of when he’s out there.”
The Wolf Pack will counter with an array of weapons, including 20-year-old defenceman Dyllan Quon. The North Van Minor product earned the league’s Best Defenceman award after scoring seven goals and notching 31 assists to lead the league’s defencemen with 38 points in 38 games. Samson said he’s been amazed by Quon’s growth since he joined the team as a 17-year-old.
“A little over two years ago I remember meeting with him and he was like, ‘How can I get out there more?’ He wasn’t on the power play consistently, he wasn’t on the penalty kill, he was kind of our fifth or sixth guy,” he said. “To see where he’s gone from three or four years ago to now, it’s pretty incredible.”
Quon is one of six 20-year-olds who have led the Wolf Pack all season. That list includes Mitch Crisanti, who set a club record for goals and finished third in the league with 63 points in 41 games; Dyllan’s twin brother Spencer, the franchise’s all-time scoring leader who racked up 61 points in 38 games; team captain Brodyn Nielsen; forward Daniel Tait and defenceman Daniel Delbianco.
“All of those guys have been great,” said Samson, adding that all of them will be playing their final junior games during these playoffs. “There’s a little bit of an extra push from the 20-year-olds because they know this is it.”
Other big contributors include defenceman Troy Ring, who played in the league’s Prospects game; rookie forwards Alex Ambrosio and Henry Cleghorn; and goaltender Trevor Withers, another North Vancouver native, who started the season in a three-way time-share between the pipes but emerged as the team’s No. 1, backed up by Sergio Del-Linz.
“He’s played well for us,” Samson said of Withers. “He’s going to be our starter coming into Game 1 here. Del-Linz has to be ready and we know that he’s a guy that can go in for sure. I expect Trevor to have a strong playoffs, but with the amount of games we’re going to play, Sergio’s got to be ready to go in there too.”
Samson is counting on his team’s depth to overcome the surging Ice Hawks.
“Sometimes we get away from our systems or we get frustrated because something doesn’t work and we kind of try to get off the game plan as individuals, that’s the only thing that can get us into trouble,” he said. “With our depth the plan is just to play our four lines, play our six D and grind them down a bit. We’ve just got to execute. Get shots on the net. Go to the dirty areas of the ice, maybe bang a few ugly goals home. It doesn’t have to be pretty.”
One more area of concern for North Van is the way they finished the season. Their league-leading record included an impressive 17-game winning streak that spanned all of October and much of November, but the team finished the year with just one win in four February games.
“We’re definitely concerned — we haven’t been playing our best hockey,” said Samson. “I think that our guys are going to know that it’s time to turn it up right now. I think we got a little bit complacent. We did just enough to finish where we wanted to finish and I think guys are starting to get excited about the playoffs. . . . Delta is a team that’s pretty hot right now, but it’s a clean slate. I know our group is going to be ready to go and we’ll be playing some of our best hockey. We’ve got to get after them right away. The boys are pretty fired up to go.”
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The playoff series starts tonight with a 7:35 p.m. puck drop at Ladner Leisure Centre. The series will shift back to North Vancouver for Games 2 and 3. Friday night the teams will play at Karen Magnussen Arena in a 7:30 p.m. start. On Saturday the Pack will shift back to their normal home at Harry Jerome Recreation Centre for a 7 p.m. faceoff for Game 3.
