The bump on the playoff road seems to have only become steeper for the Border City’s boys of winter.
For the second straight year, the Lloydminster Bobcats’ season ended unceremoniously, with a four-game sweep at the hands of their playoff nemesis, the Grande Prairie Storm.
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This year was supposed to be different. Many pundits had expected the best-of-seven North Division semifinal between Lloyd and Grande Prairie to be one of the longest battles in the first round of the AJHL playoffs. It turned out to be the shortest, ending on March 25, and it was the only sweep in the league’s quarter-finals.
“It almost seems like Grande Prairie is just one of those teams that have our number,” said Bobcats assistant coach Matt Brassard, the lone member of Lloydminster’s current coaching staff who was also part of the organization last year.
“It happens at every level. You look at the NHL. When I was growing up, Pittsburgh was kind of the dominant team in the NHL. Washington always had good teams and they had to run into (the Penguins). Finally, (the Capitals) got over the hump one year and they won the (Stanley) Cup.
“Maybe (the Storm) is just one of those teams that have our number. But, every team, every group, is different. I think, the way things were approached, as a staff, were different this year. The ways things were approached on the ice this year were different. The rosters were different. But, at the end of the day, hockey is hockey. You’ve got to go out and play.”
Just three points separated the North’s second-place Storm from the No. 3 Bobcats in the regular season. Scoring 34 wins and 75 points during its 55-game schedule, Lloyd also placed third in the overall standings in the 12-team league.
COACH ‘PROUD’
“I’m proud of this group,” said Brassard, a former Vancouver Canucks’ defence prospect who played major junior in Ontario and university hockey in Prince Edward Island. “I’m proud of what we did throughout the season. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get results in the playoffs. But we’re looking forward to building on it and getting over that hump one day.
“Obviously, it’s tough to see the season come to an end. But I’m happy with the boys. I’m happy with a lot of the steps a lot of them made. That’s really rewarding as coaches. You just want to see guys get better throughout the year. That’s what happened.
“Yeah, it’s always tough to see the 20s move on. That was the kind of the message to the other guys, is how quickly it goes by. I always say my junior days were the best days of my life, and I hope they feel the same. It’s the 18s and 19s who can come back for another year, hopefully they remember this feeling, and they don’t take any days for granted, because before you know it, it could be over.”
Similar to last year’s playoff script, Grande Prairie made the most of home ice, winning 3-2 and 2-1 overtime games before the series switched to Lloydminster, where the Storm intensified and posted 6-3 and 5-3 victories, respectively.
A playoff sweep always stings, even for generally upbeat people like Bobcats’ graduating captain Kade Fendelet, the Lloyd-raised forward whose family now calls Saskatoon home.
“It’s a weird feeling,” the 20-year-old Fendelet said after his last game as a Bobcat. “I remember being 16 or 17, a rookie coming in, not really knowing what was going on. But, just after playing my last game, you try to take it all in and really embrace those friendships and memories, because going forward, that’s really all we can bring forth from here. You just really want to take in these next couple of days with the group, as much as you can.”
Fendelet, the Bobcats’ top scorer in this year’s playoffs, is also the longest-serving member among the team’s six graduating players. That group includes both goaltenders, Ty Matonovich and Trent Peterson, defenceman Oakley McIlwain and forwards Gus El-Tahhan and Jadon Iyogun.
Primed for a playoff push, the Bobcats ran into injury trouble at the most inopportune time. Key forward Kael Screpnek missed Game 1, starting goalie Matonovich wasn’t able to play in Game 4, and valuable forward Raphael Messier was sidelined for the final two games of the series. Not to mention the prolonged absence of second-year defenceman Noah Smith, out since before Christmas.
All those injuries, and the unscheduled departures of defenceman Esteban Cinq-Mars, forward Matthew Hikida and goaltender Jaiden Sharma, combined to weaken a Lloyd team that had been built for a post-season run.
The Bobcats used their considerable size to assert themselves physically in what proved to be a double-edged strategy. While they made life difficult for their opponents, they also sometimes made life difficult for themselves, taking undisciplined penalties in the process.
“It’s a fine line,” Fendelet agreed. “It’s easy to say stuff once it’s all said and done. From a team standpoint, there are things we would have liked to have done differently. There’s no sense now just reminiscing on that. Stuff happens and I guess it is what it is. All we can do is learn from this and hope it doesn’t happen again to anyone in this group.”
As for playing with a thinner lineup down the stretch, the Lloyd captain chalked up those challenges as par for the course.
“Every team is going to go through adversity and be put in tough situations, I guess, but I think our team handled it as well as we could,” Fendelet said. “Like you said, we were short of guys. There was some stuff that we would like to have had that we didn’t, coming into the run here. But, like I said, every team deals with it, so you can’t use those excuses. We could have found a way, but we just weren’t able to.
“You want to go as far as you can (in playoffs). We had a great regular season and a great group of guys. I’d like to think we left it all out there and did as much as we could.”
For the likes of Fendelet, university hockey is the probable next step in his career. He said he would take the coming weeks, or months, to review his options. He said his immediate plan was to find work in Saskatoon for this spring and summer.
For the Storm, the job remains on the ice as they go up against the regular-season champions, the Whitecourt Wolverines, in the North final, which begins Friday, April 3. Whitecourt lost its playoff-opener, before rattling off four straight victories to eliminate the Fort McMurray Oil Barons in their division semifinal.
“Oh yeah, it’s always nice to get a bigger rest than the other teams, heal up from this playoff series, because obviously it’s a grind,” said Grande Prairie defenceman Reily Pickford, an 18-year-old Chauvin, Alta., native. “It’s going to be nice.
“Only coming up here (to Lloydminster) one time, that’s also nice. Getting it out of the way, the driving.”
The versatile Pickford was in the thick of things all series, including an ongoing battle with Bobcats’ imposing forward Landen Ward. A couple of years ago, they were Lloyd U18 AAA teammates. Ward is a son of former NHLer Lance, and Pickford is a brother of likely future NHLer Bryce.
“Yeah, we kind of went at it there a bit,” Pickford said after the series-clinching game.
“Me, I’ve got nothing against Ward, but we’re not close. It’s a series. I don’t really know the guy (well). I played with him one year in midget — it was a good year. Nothing against him, but it’s playoffs.”
It was a showcase of playoff hockey, particularly early in the series as both games in Grande Prairie went to overtime.
“I thought, especially the first two games, they were very close,” Pickford concurred. “They could have gone either way, but we battled through it and stuck to our game. I’d say (the difference was) just sticking to our game plan, and doing what we know we can do. Everyone has a different role, and just sticking to that.”
A heavy Lloydminster team accentuated physicality, and Grande Prairie did its best to counter that with aggression and skill.
“I’d say just being able to play our game, not getting too much into it — because you never know what’s going to happen with the reffing and stuff you can’t control,” Pickford said. “But just being able to stay calm and cool, and not retaliating.”
Doing so was particularly challenging for Pickford, who previously played U18 AAA with four members of the junior A Bobcats.
“Yeah, it is, definitely,” he said. “I’ve played with them before. Yeah, it is always tough to stay calm and not retaliate. Sometimes, they get the best of you.”
The Storm — sporting bleached hair for playoff team unity — gained an eight-day break between games before facing Whitecourt, which had six days between the first and second rounds.
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