The dressing rooms have been cleaned, the jerseys have been washed, players have left on their separate ways and the exit meetings have been had. For the first time in six years, the Calgary Hitmen have cleaned out their portion of the Scotiabank Saddledome and have moved onto the off-season one week before the puck dropped on the Western Hockey League playoffs.
This season, there just wasn’t the same magic or ability to come through in one-goal games in the same way that propelled the club to a wildcard birth last spring.
Last year, they played in 35 one-goal games, the third most in the league and went 19-6-8-2. This year, the Hitmen skated in 34 one-goal affairs, suffered a 12-11-9-2 record and lost five games that included an empty-netter at the end of regulation. Their 34 appearances in tight games was the fifth-most in the league (Prince Albert Raiders and the Seattle Thunderbirds led the way with 36) and tied for the for the third-fewest amount of wins. The Hitmen’s winning percentage in those games of .515 was the second-worst in the league, only topped by the Kamloops Blazers at .500.
“We struggled with consistency this year. When we played older teams that loaded up at the deadline, the margin for error for us to be successful was much smaller. Against the other teams, we felt like we were right there with them. It was frustrating early in the year with the one-goal losses, they really drained the team,” said first year Hitmen GM Jeff Chynoweth.
The Hitmen suffered a major injury early in the season and sent the team into a tailspin.
Coming off a 30-goal season, Beck Malenstyn was named as one of the alternate captains this season. Returning from Washington Capitals training camp, Malenstyn was expected to produce a similar, if not even better season in hopes to drag the Hitmen back to the playoffs.
In the fourth game of the season, Malenstyn was driven into the boards while playing the Saskatoon Blades and snapped his wrist. It ended up being be his final game in a Hitmen uniform.
The injury came during a five-game losing skid and not too long before the Hitmen endured a season-high seven-game schneid later in November.
When Chynoweth spoke with the media during his introductory press conference, he mentioned that he, alongside his management team, needed to figure what this Hitmen team was. They were stuck somewhere between conference contenders and basement-dwellers.
The Malenstyn injury and ensuing losing skids provided the Hitmen with a path for the rest of the season, one of not rebuilding, but retooling.
With the way that the Central Division shaped up this season, the Hitmen, despite never sniffing the .500-mark at any point past their third game, were always in quasi-contention up until their fifth-last game.
“We never stopped thinking that we weren’t going to make it until they told us we were mathematically out of it. I think that was one of our biggest lessons that we learned this year, was not quitting. It was one of our team ethos. That, and never accept defeat,” said Hitmen Head Coach Dallas Ferguson. “We learned a lot about our locker room before the last P.A. game. We won against Saskatoon the night earlier, but Red Deer had won so we were mathematically out. We sat and talked about it and realized that we weren’t going to hide from the big moments, regardless if we are in the playoffs or not.”
The down year in the Central allowed Chynoweth to restructure his team on the fly while still competing for the final playoff spot in the division.
On Nov. 25, just days before Malenstyn’s return to the lineup, the Hitmen sent their former first-round pick Malenstyn, their captain Matteo Gennaro to the high-flying Swift Current Broncos for a package of players and prospects.
The most impactful piece that came to Calgary from Speedy Creek was 17-year-old forward Riley Stotts, who blossomed in a move to centre alongside Jake Kryski and turned into an appetizing NHL Draft eligible prospect.
In 74 previous games with the Broncos over two seasons, Stotts netted 11 goals, eight assists and 19 points. In just 47 games with the Hitmen, Stotts exploded with 17 goals, 24 assists and 41 points. He was also one of two skaters to finish with a positive plus-minus rating. The other was Conner Chaulk, a 20-year-old centre that came over in the Gennaro-Malenstyn deal as well.
Chynoweth was not done there.
He also sent Andrei Grishakov to the Victoria Royals for a third-round pick in the 2019 WHL Bantam Draft. The move temporarily opened an import spot on the roster, which could be a valuable one, seeing as the Hitmen own the eighth-overall pick in this summer’s Canadian Hockey League Import Draft.
But the biggest move this winter came three days before the Jan. 10 trade deadline, when Chynoweth orchestrated a six-player deal with the Tri-City Americans.
The Hitmen got a big return for the local product that went unnoticed through the Bantam Draft.
Coming to the Hitmen was 17-year-old winger Carson Focht, 18-year-old blue liner Dakota Krebs and three high-end future draft picks.
Now with Focht, Stotts paired with Tristen Nielsen, the Hitmen owned three players chosen in the top-20 of the 2015 Bantam Draft.
“We’re really excited about (the 17-year-olds) going forward. They show lots of promise and excitement, the chemistry is there and they are all eligible to return. The more continuity and familiarity within the returning group will only help us moving forward,” said Chynoweth.
It took Focht a little longer that it did for Stotts to get into the flow of things.
This season, Focht supplied six goals and 16 points in 37 games with the Americans. With the Hitmen, he surpassed both totals in five less games, netting seven goals and finishing 17 points.
Moving forward, the Hitmen could have as many as 10 players that saw significant time this year enter their 18-year-old season.
“I think it’s important for our younger guys to realize that success doesn’t happen just because they are one year older. We saw some great growth from our younger players this year, but that doesn’t mean you snap your fingers and it translates into success next year,” said Hitmen Assistant Coach Trent Cassan. “There are going to be expectations on this group and we need to do a good job of managing those expectations. There is a lot of work that needs to go into their games first. We just hope those experiences and situations they were in this year, that they can grow from that.”
Undoubtedly, the group of ten 17’s will take on a bigger role next season, as there are holes to fill in from graduating players.
The Hitmen saw their leading scorer Jakob Stukel, their second best faceoff-taker Chaulk and Nick Schneider, who was a workhorse between the pipes, all graduate the program.
After setting new club records for appearances, saves and minutes, Schneider has been sent to play with the Stockton Heat, the American Hockey League affiliate for the Calgary Flames. The same can’t be said for Stukel, who was a sixth-round pick by his hometown Vancouver Canucks. The big club announced one day after the Hitmen season ended, that they would not sign him. Chaulk was never drafted and never inked to a free agent deal, so he plans to take the summer to figure out what the next step in his career is.
With the offensive emergence of Nielsen, Stotts, Kryski and Mark Kastelic, it shouldn’t be hard to replace Stukel’s point totals. Where the Hitmen might struggle next summer is finding a goaltender capable of replacing Schneider.
Up until the last few weeks of the season, Schneider’s backup, Matthew Armitage, didn’t look capable of filling into that role.
Never really factoring into the lineup that regularly, Armitage didn’t grab his first-career win until he edged Vegas Golden Knights’ prospect Dylan Ferguson and the Blazers 6-5 in a shootout March 3.
“We told Amry in his exit interviews that we thought he deserved those starts in the second half of the season and they were good opportunities for him. He knows he’s competing for a job next year. He’s been an underdog his whole career and has really relished in those opportunities,” said Chynoweth.
Another possible heir apparent to replace Schneider could be Nick Sanders, who will be in his 20-year-old season next year and brings 48 more appearances than Armitage in the WHL.
While Sanders is more travelled, playing for the Raiders and Americans, he has also battled a pair of big injuries in his time. He underwent hip surgery after the 2016-17 season. In order to regain value coming off the surgery, Sanders was sent down to the Lloydminster Bobcats of the Alberta Junior Hockey League, where the Hitmen nabbed him in exchange for a sixth-round pick in the 2019 Draft, after seeing him go 6-5-2 with a .915 save percentage and a 2.95 goals against average.
Three days before the trade, Sanders suffered a high-ankle sprain and never suited up in a game for the remainder of the season.
In his 67 career games in the WHL, Sanders owns a .466 winning percentage, a .878 save percentage, 3.97 goals against average (which is inflated by three starts as a 16-year-old and four starts this season coming off hip surgery) and zero shutouts.
The Hitmen feel like they have enough goaltenders at the WHL level or within their system to put forth a strong tandem next season.
As for other offseason roster adjustments, Chynoweth hinted at adding a top-six forward with skill, while Ferguson was more direct and said that he was dreaming of a right-handed shot up front on the power play to improve a unit that clunked along at a 18.34 per cent clip this season, second worst in the league. It is unlikely that Chynoweth will have his phone on airplane mode all summer, so if there is a deal for a 20-year-old blue liner on the table, he is sure to inquire.
In the media scrums after the season, Chynoweth said that he loved the job of first-year head coach Ferguson and believes that they are in good shape with Cassan, Jason LaBarbera and Joel Otto moving forward, but there will still be meetings with them and everyone else in the organization over the next few days.
With the heavy lifting of roster adjustments done in season this year, the Hitmen they believe they have the right personnel in house to develop and move past the fourth-worst season in franchise history.
“We think we are headed in the right direction. There are no guarantees in junior hockey, but we think we have a good nucleolus to build on,” said Chynoweth
