Oil Capitals hunting down tops in West Division

If you told Tyson Ramsey in the summer his club would be sniffing the top spot in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s West Division heading into Christmas break, he would’ve taken that in a heartbeat.

The Virden Oil Capitals head coach and general manager has his team in a more than welcoming position heading into the second half of a 58-game schedule, carrying a 16-10-1 record and a second-place hold in their division.

“I think we’re doing a good job,” said Ramsey over the weekend. “I think if you look at our record and you asked us to start the season, if we’d be here close to Christmas break, I think we’d be OK with that. Our goal is to just keep staying in that fight. We think we can finish at the top of our division, and then looking across the other division, you want to keep pace with the best teams on that side as well. That’s our goal.”

After missing the postseason for the first time in 10 years last season, the Oil Capitals have returned to their competitive form and challenged for the West Division throne this entire season but have only fallen short of that mark to the uber-talented Dauphin Kings, who currently have a four-point lead over Virden with two more games played.

The two clubs, who have fought tooth and nail the entire year, faced each other on Friday night, with the Oil Capitals getting the best of the Kings with a 5-1 road victory at Credit Union Place to help make up some ground in the standings.

It was also a statement win for Virden considering the poor effort they displayed in their prior game against the league-leading Niverville Nighthawks (26-2-1), who skated them out of the building en route to an 11-2 victory. After flushing that game down the toilet, Ramsey was anxious to see how his team would come out and respond against the only team they’ve been chasing in the West but was pleased to see the bounce-back effort come to fruition.

“Against them (Niverville), it just seemed to be a perfect storm of everybody just not being quite ready to go, and obviously they’re a good team, so you have to give full credit to them, but we certainly didn’t give our best there, right from our goaltender to our defence to our forwards,” he said. “So, the next game was pretty big, and I was pretty impressed by how the guys played. It was probably the biggest win of the season for us so far just because of the way the Niverville game went before that.

“I thought for two periods, we were really solid on both sides of the puck. We got a little bit scrambly in the third period, but I thought we did a really good job after a tough game, and we really got to give our guys credit for their attitude going into it and the way that we were able to stick to our game plan and do the things that we need to do to be successful as a group.”

That game plan is a suffocating style of play that gives their opponents next to nothing in time and space, keeping any and every opportunity to the perimeter, which they are more than happy to give up when they have all the confidence in the world with their goaltending duo of Braxton Burdeny and Micky Gross.

Burdeny, 20, was traded to Virden in the offseason from the Winnipeg Monarchs in exchange for forward Maxx Hamelin. In 19 appearances, the veteran netminder has posted a 10-8-1 record while registering a 2.88 goals against average and a .904 save percentage. Burdeny’s backstop, Gross, has collected a 3.04 GAA and a .881 save percentage through nine appearances but still has a 6-2 record to show for it. The 18-year-old is coming off a solid season with the Southwest Cougars last year, when he went 15-11-4 while posting a 2.67 GAA and a .925 save percentage.

Ramsey said he’s been more than happy with what he’s seen from the two so far.

“Our goaltending, we feel like, is a strength of ours,” Ramsey said. “Both guys have played really well for us, with a 20-year-old with some experience in Braxton and then Micky, who’s a rookie in the league but has played well and is certainly benefiting from playing alongside a 20-year-old. So, we’ve got trust in our goaltenders.”

As for the blue-line, Ramsey’s got a nice mix of experience and youth at his disposal that is led by team captain Ty Plaisier. The 20-year-old hometown product, who’s in his fourth season with the Oil Capitals and has also gotten into some action in the Western Hockey League with the Regina Pats in 2023, can play in all situations, whether it be the power play, penalty kill or late in a game when a team is trying to defend a lead or score a game-tying goal.

Take it from none other than Ramsey.

“Ty is our leader for a reason, and he’s our captain for a reason,” Ramsey said. “He works hard day in and day out on and off the ice, he pushes our guys to get better in practice, and there’s not very many nights or shifts where he’s not one of the hardest working guys out there.”

Plaisier is scoring at nearly a point per game pace this year with three goals and 24 points through 26 games, but he isn’t Ramsey’s only luxury. He’s just the start of a long list of dynamic, puck-moving defencemen that includes Rhylan Baxter, Nathan Schaefer and Maddox Shindle, plus rookies Jett Deschamps and Lincoln Black-Greaves, who have really caught the eye of their coach with their reliable play.

“They’re both young guys that were in Western Hockey League camps, and it’s their first year of junior hockey playing against bigger, stronger, faster guys, and they have really adapted well to the junior-style game,” said Ramsey. “We didn’t know coming in whether they would be every-day guys for us, but they’ve proven they can handle it, and they’re valuable to our lineup night in and night out.”

Jett Deschamps, 17, attended Regina’s camp in September and then was sent to the MJHL to spend some time developing with a motivated Virden squad looking to get back into the postseason.

At five-foot-11 and 170 pounds, Deschamps will need to continue filling out his frame, but his biggest asset is his smooth skating, which has given him an easier time defending against stronger players and has also given him an opportunity to get some minutes on the man advantage.

He has six points this season.

Black-Greaves, also 17, was with the Portland Winter Hawks before coming over to the Oil Capitals. Compared to Deschamps, the six-foot-one, 185-pound defenceman is known more for his big and heavy style of game and has proven time and time again he can be trusted to play in big situations.

He also has six points this year.

While the blue-line has been instrumental in Virden’s success, the forward group has been just as important too.

The Oil Capitals lead the entire West Division in the offensive department, averaging exactly four goals per game this season. At the helm of the fast and dynamic goal-scoring is third-year forward Bryce Bryant, who’s committed to Bemidji State University for next season.

The 19-year-old Virden product has 16 goals and 40 points, which is 16 more points than the second-highest scorer on the team, former WHLer London Hoilett — who has 14 goals and 24 points.

Bryant’s numbers are also tied with Winkler’s Niklas Gudmundson for fifth among the entire MJHL, only trailing Portage’s Rhett Platt (45) and Trevor Hill (42), and Niverville’s Hayden Wheddon (45) and Adam Vigfusson (42). Ramsey is glad to see him playing up to his potential.

“With Bryce, his play speaks for itself,” he said. “He’s so skilled and so fast and such a dynamic skater and really thinks the game well. He’s started to score some goals a little bit and really has worked hard on his shot and started to play a better 200-foot game too, and that’s helping his offence a little bit with getting back and turning pucks over and driving our offence the other way. He’s just one of the elite players in this league, and he has really shown that.”

Another forward that’s really come into his own is 16-year-old Saskatoon Blades prospect Cohen Lewko. The Sanford product was one of Saskatoon’s last cuts, and he’s shown with Virden why he came so close to making it in the WHL with how mature of a game he plays.

“They (Saskatoon) trusted us to have him here and help him develop this year, and he’s really done a good job. He’s a big, strong kid; you don’t think of him as a 16-year-old. He shoots the puck extremely well, and he’s got a really good head for the game, and he came in here wanting to get better, and his play away from the puck — he’s doing better things in his own end of the rink — and he’s really grasped that and has taken that seriously.

“It’s pretty amazing for a 16-year-old to be having the success that he’s having, and no surprise in that he works extremely hard to get better at his game.”

With nine goals and 16 points, Lewko has also been a mainstay on the top power play unit as well, alongside Bryant, Brandon’s Colten Worthington, Hoilett and Schaefer at the top as quarterback.

Virden’s power play is currently running at 23.1 per cent, which is second in the West Division to Dauphin’s 24.4 per cent. The penalty kill, on the other hand, sits third worst in the MJHL with a 72.4 per cent.

Virden will close out its action in December this week with a home-and-home set against the Swan Valley Stampeders, with the Oil Capitals going on the road on Thursday and then coming back home to Tundra Oil & Gas Place on Friday night, before going on Christmas break. The team will be back Saturday, Jan. 3, on the road for a matchup against the Northern Manitoba Blizzard.

Ramsey expects the competition to pick up going into the second half of the season, so his team will need to be ready for what’s to come.

“We’re just looking to try to be a little better every day and really develop that consistency within our game,” said Ramsey. “Those meaningful games, those one-goal games, and those tight-checking hockey games are the ones that you’re going to have to win in the playoffs, so the more you can play those games throughout the course of the season, the better your team reacts to them and is able to have success in them, and the better you are prepared for what’s to come later in the year.”

» mdelucataronno@brandonsun.com