Joel Scherban says his team’s recent tailspin isn’t really all that much cause for concern.
The Lakehead Thunderwolves hockey coach says he thinks his squad is actually in pretty good shape heading into the final weekend of the OUA hockey season, with a second-place finish well within their grasp.
“We don’t feel like we’re limping at all,” Scherban said Tuesday, after naming Andrew Wilkins his player of the month for January.
“We’re actually pretty happy with the way we are playing. We’ve gone through a really tough stretch in our schedule and we’ve played well throughout it. We have nine losses this year and six are against top three teams in the country.”
Four, including a 7-4 loss last Saturday, were at the hands of the Western Mustangs, anointed this week as the No. 1 team in the land.
“I thought we had a chance at winning three of them and we outshot them by 20-something Saturday night. It’s frustrating that we couldn’t beat them, but we didn’t. We had a big win over Brock who has a great home record this year,” Scherban said.
“We played some really good teams the last few weeks and it’s nice playing good teams to get ready for the playoffs.”
Struggling through a stretch that has seen them win just once in seven outings, the Wolves haven’t really hurt themselves too much in the OUA West standings, other than eliminating themselves in rapid fashion from first-place contention.
Lakehead needs just one win at home this weekend against the Brock Badgers, a team that has played the Wolves tough at Fort William Gardens of late and split two match-ups in 2011-12, both in St. Catharines.
A Waterloo loss would also do the trick.
“Obviously we wanted to win the division, but looking at it now, Western was the best team in the regular season and we’ll give them credit for that. But we want to become the best team in the playoffs aand second place is definitely a good result in the regular season, especially when you consider our schedule,” he said.
“We’re the only team in the division to play Western four times. Only us and Windsor had to play McGill, so right there a quarter of your schedule is against great teams.
Should they clinch second, it would almost certainly set up a first-round battle against the Guelph Gryphons, a team that has fallen on hard times this season, but one Scherban isn’t willing to look past.
“The parity is so good in our division right now, I don’t think it really matters whether you come first or second or third in terms of who you’re going to meet in the first round. You’re going to meet a very good team.
“If we meet Guelph, they were in the division final last year. They have a veteran team. They fought injuries and probably underachieved a little bit. Laurier would be tough. Windsor, Brock and York would all be tough opponents. Who we play doesn’t really matter, based on our seeding. It’s the home ice we want.”
A win over Brock would ensure the Wolves home-ice advantage through two rounds, and all the way to the Queen’s Cup should Western be upset along the way.
Claw marks: Injured forward Adam Sergerie (concussion) said he’s taking things day-by-day, but there’s no timetable for his return to action.
