Chiefs treking through up and down season

It’s not about how you start the race — it’s how you finish it.

Logan McGonigal, the first-year head coach of the Yellowhead Chiefs U18 AAA girls squad, has really taken that sentiment to heart during all the ebbs and flows his team has experienced throughout this season, which only has a handful of games remaining on the schedule.

The Chiefs started their season dropping five of seven games, only scoring six times in that span, but then flipped the script during their next stretch, taking five of seven contests and outscoring their opponents 21-14. Now, in its last 10 games, Yellowhead has managed just three wins, however, McGonigal isn’t just looking at the results, he’s looking at progress. And he’s seen a ton of it.

“We’ve had a good year,” said McGonigal. “There’s always those ups and ups and downs, but we’ve developed lots and I think coming out of Christmas break, we’ve kind of turned a corner and made great adjustments and put in some big time and effort playing some really good hockey, and I’m pretty excited with where we’re at right now on the season. I’m just really happy with the squad we have right from goaltending all the way out through the D and the forwards.”

McGonigal’s club now sits fifth-place in the Manitoba Female Hockey League U18 AAA standings with 24 points and a 10-10-4 record, edging the Central Plains Capitals (8-15-1), Pembina Valley Hawks (7-14-1), and Interlake Lightning (2-19-2).

And while their recent play outings on the score sheet don’t necessarily pop off the page, they’ve slowly adjusted to a different brand of hockey under McGonigal, one that prides itself on building confidence and chemistry through defensive structure, and then using just the right moment to pounce and make the opponent pay for a costly mistake.

“It’s cliche or whatever you want to call it, but I’ve kind of always preached as a coach defence wins championships, and you take care of your own end first,” McGonigal said. “We want to stay on the right side of the puck and make things simple in your defensive end, and then it allows you to play a lot more in the offensive end.

“That’s the best part of our game is our defensive side because we don’t give up a whole bunch, so staying on the right side of the puck in the D zone and turning it around into the offensive zone has been a huge benefit for us.”

It’s a hard style of game to play that requires a lot of buy-in from the players, especially at this age when players may be more inclined to just want to put the puck in the back of the net, but if it’s well executed, it’s hard to stop.

The Chiefs would have gotten a glimmer of that during arguably their most impressive three games of the year, which saw them beat the fourth-place Winnipeg Avros (12-9-3) 3-2, drop a tight 3-2 decision to the second-place Winnipeg Ice (21-1-1), who’ve lost just one regulation game all season, and then finally, pull a major upset over the league-leading Eastman Selects (21-1-2) with a 3-2 victory in overtime thanks to captain Emma Pollock.

He said winning that one did wonders for his team’s confidence.

“Eastman has a very deep squad, top to bottom … they just don’t let off, and we were fortunate enough to beat them a couple weeks ago, and it helped for us to see that they might have only lost once this year, but we just beat them in overtime,” he said. “It was good for the girls to see we can play with the best in the league if we put in a full 60 minutes.”

That’s exactly what McGonigal will be emphasizing to his team as the post-season looms with just four games left. On Saturday, they face Pembina Valley on the road, and then will host them next weekend, before playing Interlake the following day. Yellowhead will then wrap up its regular season on the road in Winnipeg against the Ice on Friday, Feb. 13.

McGonigal certainly doesn’t need to be reminded how important these last few games will be.

“It’s huge,” said McGonigal. “Obviously, you want to finish as high as you can in the standings, and everybody’s aware every game matters. Trying to get those points out of those games is huge so we can chase down that highest seed that we can.”

That would be third, which is currently in the hands of the Westman Wildcats with 30 points, respectively. If the Chiefs were to grab that spot, they would practically need to win all of their games, while the Wildcats would have to lose all theirs, so it’s more realistic they stay where they are or grab the fourth spot, where the Avros sit just three points ahead with the same amount of games played with 24.

Regardless, it’s looking like it will be those two teams meeting in the first round, but you never know what can happen.

That’s why McGonigal is focused more on his own team as opposed to who they may or may not play. He knows they still have some components to work on.

Yellowhead has the third most penalty minutes in the league with 191, and while their penalty kill is operating at an 86 per cent success rate, these are opportunities they will want to minimize in a do-or-die matchup in the postseason. As for their chances, with a 7.5 per cent rate on the man advantage, McGonigal is still looking at ways to improve the power play.

Sometimes it comes down to reminding yourself you have to shoot to score instead of making a fancy play that will end up on the imaginary highlight reel.

“A lot of times we’ve just struggled to get the puck to the net or struggled to get pucks through early on,” he said. “Not really changing angles and just kind of head down and throw in the puck and it ends up in somebody’s shin pads and turns the other way. Just trying to do too, but I think you see that all over the game at this level.”

“Just preaching to these girls that maybe they had some success at a younger age with those points and stuff, but I don’t care about points. I care about doing the right things and what’s right for the team, and when you can get that mindset away from worrying about putting up points and things like that, it helps you turn that corner too. They don’t ask how, they ask how many, so just getting traffic in front of the net, collapsing to the net for those rebounds, and banging those ugly goals home.”

And those types are always the ones scored in the playoffs, when time and space are at an all-time low.

In part due to McGonigal’s focus on the defensive side of the game, the Chiefs don’t have any players with eye-catching offensive totals, five-foot-six defender Hailey Chipelski and five-foot-seven forward Presley Hodson — daughter of former Brandon Wheat King and Westman Wildcats U15 girls head coach Jamie Hodson — both lead their team in scoring with nine goals and 17 points.

In the blue paint, starting netminder Kylie Hack has been a key reason for Yellowhead’s defensive prowess, as the Reston product has notched eight wins, a 2.21 goals against average, and a 9.17 save percentage in 17 appearances. Five-foot-five backup goaltender Gracie Johnston has two wins, a 2.94 GAA, and an .890 save percentage through eight starts.

» mdelucataronno@brandonsun.com