Nationals ready to roll
WHITEFISH — The Glacier Nationals may lack experience, but their young, speed-laden roster has the coaching staff excited for tonight’s season-opener against the Gillette Wild.
The Nationals return six players from last year’s team — which advanced to the semifinals of the NORPAC playoffs — and welcome a host of newcomers eager to make their mark in Junior A hockey.
“We’ve put together about what I’d consider the perfect development team,” general manger and assistant coach Butch Kowalka said. “We have very few 20-year-olds, but we have the right ones, and we have a lot of young talent. The growth potential of this team is huge.
“Anytime you have what we consider a good development team, it’s a little bit of a crapshoot, but the upside is so much larger than with an older group of players.”
Captain Paul Kinder (Dearborn, Mich.) is back for his third year in Whitefish and is the team’s top returning scorer after finishing last season with eight goals and 20 assists in 18 games. He’s joined by returning forwards Chris Cutshall (Anchorage, Alaska), Jackson Schroeder (Whitmore Lake, Mich.), John Tesarek (Palmdale, Calif.) and Adam Dalton (Goodyear, Ariz.). Tanner Dodd (Anchorage, Alaska) is the team’s lone returning defenseman.
Head coach Joakim Falt said those six will be crucial to the team’s success given the rest of the team’s youth.
“They’re very good leaders in the dressing room and on the ice,” Falt said. “They’ve already got a year under their belts, so we really need them. We need them to stand out, and those are the guys that need to be good in the hockey games too. You can’t just be a leader. When it’s time to show up, you need to show up, your team is going to count on you a lot.”
Beyond the roster turnover, the biggest change for this year’s Nationals is a full-time move to the AWHL. Last year they split their regular season between the AWHL and the NORPAC. While they went 13-5-2 in the NORPAC, they finished just 4-15-1 in the tougher AWHL.
“It’s a good opportunity to play at a better level,” Schroeder said. “A lot of the players are more skilled in this league, so we’ve got to step it up and do our best and see how we do.”
Kinder believes the Nationals are up for it after their preseason trip to Golden, British Columbia. They lost a pair of games to teams from Canada’s Junior B level on Sept. 6 and 7, but the trip exposed the team to tough competition.
“Going up to Canada helped out a lot,” Kinder said. “The competition level in Canada is definitely a lot better than it is going to be in the (AWHL), and it was definitely a wake-up call for some of the new guys. The way we’ve been looking in practice, I think we’re looking pretty strong and we’re going to put up a good fight in the AWHL.”
Kinder and Cutshall lead a group of small, but quick forwards.
“We definitely have speed, that’s for sure,” Kinder said. “Hands are good, speed’s good, we’re working hard in the corners and that’s the biggest thing about hockey. Working hard in the corners and winning the battles on the boards. Get the puck on net, crash the net and score.”
Dodd is joined on the blue line by newcomer Jonas Svehn (Hola, Sweden), a 19-year-old who has impressed Falt with his passing ability.
“When you’ve got a guy like that coming from Europe and moving in here, it’s going to take a few games for him to get used to it,” Falt said. “The rinks here are smaller, but he’s such a good passer so he’s going to do fine.”
The Nationals had a goals against average of 5.00 last season, but Falt believes the goaltending should be better. He hadn’t named a starter for tonight’s game as of Tuesday afternoon, but Anthony Benvenuti (Macomb, Mich.), Ethan Wiese (Marquette, Mich.) and Jake Mullen (Coeur d’Alene, Idaho) were all in the mix.
Tonight’s game begins at 7:35 p.m. at the Stumptown Ice Den. The Nationals also host Gillette Friday and Saturday.