Gregory, Vikings ready to defend Westman title

The time has finally come for the Vincent Massey Vikings to defend their title.

The Vikings (24-3-1) begin their shot at back-to-back Westman High School Hockey League playoff championships with a best-of-three quarterfinals duel against the Hamiota/Rivers/Elton/Strathclair Huskies (16-12) at the Sportsplex Sunday evening.

Massey, who claimed the WHSHL title last year following a perfect 32-0 run in the regular season before edging the Dauphin Clippers in the final, is certainly feeling the pressure to stay on top, but head coach Brent Blaine expects his team to be ready for whatever will be thrown its way.

“The guys are really looking forward to it,” Blaine said on Friday. “I think anytime you’re a defending champion, it doesn’t matter whether it’s regular season or playoffs, every team they’re playing you, they want to bring their best game just to show that they can play with you. Every team seems to bring our A game against us, so we’ve got to bring our A game too.”

The Vikings enter the playoff fold as the second highest seed thanks to their 49-point mark — which was only two points shy of the first place Swan Valley Tigers (24-1-3) — despite having 13 players graduate from the program at the end of last season. So while Blaine’s lineup may have had plenty of turnover, the result’s have still proved to be the same.

They came out of gate on fire winning their first games of the season before going on a two game slide with one-goal losses to the Swan Valley Tigers and Neepawa Tigers (22-6) — breaking their absurd 667 day streak without a WHSHL regulation loss. They responded with 10 straight victories, followed by seven wins in their last nine.

Massey’s nickname is “consistently consistent” and it has all the numbers to back it up.

While the Vikings have shown their offensive prowess scoring the fourth most goals in the league after hitting the back of the net 154 times, a lot of their success has come from their play in the defensive end. In 28 games, Blaine’s squad allowed 71 goals, which was the lowest across the league by at least four.

Their ability to stifle the opposition’s attack should play to their advantage come Sunday, when scoring chances become few and far between, but Blaine believes they still have some mistakes to clean up regarding their side of centre ice.

“I do think we need to be better in our zone, and then I think we can get better there, and our guys are well aware of that,” he said. “The first pass out of our zone sometimes hurts us, so I think as we get going here, the guys are aware that we need to be better that way and hopefully both netminders keep going the way they have been.”

Massey co-captain Addax Egan, who led his team in scoring with 32 goals — nine more than any other player on his club — and 60 points, and alternate captain Daylan Duncalfe, who tallied 23 goals and 57 points, will both be X-factors in this series as uber-talented forwards with high-end skill, but arguably the biggest one is between the pipes.

Second-year goaltender Hunter Gregory has been absolutely stellar this year, posting a 19-1 record with a 2.48 goals against and .925 save percentage. And it’s fair to say the Vikings will only go as far as he takes them, as Gregory’s been a big reason why their defence is so hard to penetrate. Blaine gave him the nod to start Game 1 on Sunday with rookie Madden Cheung, who collected a 5-2-1 record through eight showings with 2.67 goals against and .903 save percentage, backing him up.

“We’ll start Hunter and if he has a good game, we’ll just keep going from there,” said Blaine. “If not, we always have confidence in Madden and we’ll go to him as well.”

With such a short series, the margin for error is razor thin, but Gregory’s as calm and collected as one could be before the big opener.

“Feeling pretty good,” he said. “We got a lot of confidence right now. I just gotta do my part, try to help us win the game, and that’s about it.”

“Every game everyone wants to get at us, so there’s a lot of pressure, but I just try to ignore it.”

While Gregory tunes it out, the Huskies won’t have any worries at all as they’re the underdog in this matchup. Not to say, they won’t put up a fight, though.

The WHSHL’s seventh seed has been practically the polar opposite of Massey this season, easily being the streakiest team in the league.

They started off capturing five of their first six games, then suddenly crashing and burning after losing nine of their next 10 games. After that dry spell, they back to life and won 10 of their last 12 games, riding a five game winning streak into Sunday’s affair — which includes a 4-2 victory over the Vikings on Thursday Feb. 19 in Hamiota. The other head-to-head came earlier in the season back on Dec. 13, when Massey downed Hamiota in a 5-2 win at the Sportsplex.

Blaine believes the Huskies will be far from an easy out.

“They’re aggressive, there’s no doubt about it,” he said. “They’re hard on the forecheck and aggressive on the penalty kill so we’ve just got to move the puck a little quicker out of our zone. We’ve got to pay attention to detail in our zone and we got to score the first goal. We can’t be chasing early in the first period, so we got to be the guys that score first and go from there.

“It’s only a three game series, you don’t have much time to do a lot of thinking, so you’ve gotta be ready to go game one.”

The Huskies posted the fifth lowest goals for in the league with 102 and ranked seventh in least number of goals allowed with 121. Aaron Roels leads the way with 22 goals and 44 points, with Duncan McLean not far behind with 15 goals and 42 points, while Sam Rivas close out the top three with 14 goals and 40 points.

After that trio, there is a 20 point drop off from the next batch of players, so the Huskies depth will certainly be tested in this matchup, as the Vikings still have point producers such as Cole Adams, who has 18 goals and 32 points in 26 games, plus four 20-plus point scorers behind him in Ethen Church (28), Vaughn McLeod (28), Logan Harvey (21), and Hunter Oakden (21) following Egan and Duncalfe at the top.

Massey also has the edge in net and by a country mile, as Hamiota’s best option in the net is Nicolas McDuff, who grabbed a 6-5 record through 11 games this year with 3.35 goals against average end and a .845 save percentage.

Specialty teams could also be the difference maker in this best-of-three tilt, as the Vikings have clicked at 31.4 per cent on the man advantage, while also putting up a solid 83.6 per cent kill rate shorthanded. The Huskies, however, are successful just 23 per cent of the time on the power play and are running at only 74 per cent on the penalty kill.

Everything points to the Vikings, but Blaine knows the playoffs are called referred to as a different season for a reason. He’s expecting his team to go out and earn it.

“We can’t take a night off,” said Blaine. “We’re proud of our program and what we’ve done, so we’ve got a three game series that you’ve just got to take game by game and hopefully you’re on the right end of it by the end of it.”

» mdelucataronno@brandonsun.com