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| Kaitlin Willoughby, left, and Cassidy Hendricks talk during a break. |
The captain of the
University of Saskatchewan Huskies women’s hockey team believes she won’t be the
only reason for any success her club has in the 2017-18 campaign. The
22-year-old Prince Albert product, who is in her fifth and final season of
eligibility, is confident she is leading a capable group.
Last season, the Huskies
posted a 15-10-3 record to finish fourth in the Canada West Conference, swept
away their provincial rivals the U of Regina Cougars 2-0 in a best-of-three
first round series and fell 3-1 in a series deciding Game 3 in a Canada West
semifinal series against the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds.
A notion went around
the Canada West women’s hockey ranks that the Huskies got that far because of
Willoughby and a goalie – namely now graduated veteran Cassidy Hendricks.
Basically, U of S’s formula for winning kind of resembled the NHL’s Calgary
Flames during the era when they had power forward Jarome Iginla and goaltender
Miikka Kiprusoff.
The joke around
Calgary’s NHL franchise at that time was that Kiprusoff would made 46 saves,
Iginla would pop in a couple of goals and the Flames would win 2-1.
The Huskies have
respect for being sound defensively to tinker with the formula a bit. Instead,
it was Hendricks would make 27 to 30 saves, Willoughby would pop in a couple of
goals and the Huskies would win 2-1.
U of S opens the
regular season on Friday hosting the U of Regina Cougars at 7 p.m. at the
ancient Rutherford Rink.
When asked about the
notion that the Huskies rely on her for offence and couldn’t win if she didn’t
score, Willoughby didn’t seem too happy with the query but took time to calmly
jump to the defence of her teammates.
“I wouldn’t say that
they rely on me,” said Willoughby, who topped the Huskies in scoring with 11
goals and 10 assists in 24 regular season games in 2016-17. “Obviously, I am
the one who scored the most goals last year.
“I don’t think that
really matters, because we each have like our own things that we are good at.
There are some girls that are like super good penalty killers, and our penalty
kill was like the top of the whole (U Sports). I feel like everyone has their
own role in that way.
“I’m happy in my
role too. I’m really happy to just score goals. I’m hoping that this year our
lines click and we have a couple more people that have really good (offensive
seasons) this year.”
In checking that statistics,
Willoughby was pretty bang on. The Huskies had the fifth best penalty kill in
all of U Sports women’s hockey posting an impressive 91.1 per cent efficiency
rate last season.
Judging by the
returning players the Huskies have on defence like Leah Bohlken, Morgan
Willoughby, who is Kaitlin’s younger sister, Kayla Kirwan, Kira Bannatyne and
Emma Nutter, U of S should be as sound defensively and on the penalty this
season as they were last season.
While Hendricks is
no longer around to tend goal, the Huskies have three solid options to turn to
in net in Chloe Marshall, Jasey Book and Jessica Vance.
Offensively, the
Huskies look to get a boost from their returning forwards who seem a little
faster and stronger in the pre-season due to the work they put into off-season
training. Sophomore forward Bailee Bourassa, who was a star in midget AAA with
her hometown Weyburn Gold Wings, looks stronger and more confident.
The same can be said
of fellow second-year forwards Emily Upgang and Danielle Nogier and third-year
forwards Shyan Elias, Rachel Lundberg and Courtney Cormack. Third-year feisty
forward Brooklyn Haubrich will arguably be the hardest player to battle against
in the U Sports ranks.
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| Kaitlin Willoughby jets up ice for the Huskies. |
Rookies Chloe Smith
and Abby Shirley come to the Huskies with reputations as high-end scorers from
the Saskatchewan Female Midget AAA Hockey League. As the captain of the Swift
Current Diamond Energy Wildcats, Smith finished third in last season’s SFMAAAHL
scoring race with 18 goals and 31 assists in 28 regular season games. Shirley
was 10th in league scoring piling up 14 goals and 18 assists in 25
regular season games.
While the Huskies
have a couple of really skilled first-year forwards, the captain wanted to
ensure there were no unrealistic expectations for the newcomers.
“It is a lot of just
getting used to (U Sports),” said Kaitlin Willoughby. “It is a lot different
for the rookies coming in.
“Hopefully, lots of
people can take that transition really well. I hope that is the case for our
team this year.”
The Huskies roster
is also getting a boost from women’s hockey transfers from the Alberta Colleges
Athletic Conference ranks. Forward Chelsea Broadhead, who is in her fourth year
of eligibility, comes to the Huskies from the Olds College Broncos and
defenders Madison Colbow and Teagan Borbandy join the U of S side coming from
the SAIT Trojans and Red Deer College Queens respectively. Colbow and Borbandy
are both entering their third seasons of eligibility.
The trio should help
the Huskies in every aspect of their game.
Willoughby, who is
in nursing, is focused on helping her team bond together.
“If I look back on the
year and I know that everyone had fun that everyone felt as if we were a
family, I think that is the number one thing for success I think is when you
can click and get along,” said Willoughby.
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| Kaitlin Willoughby expects her team to enjoy a number of goals. |
Wooster was a huge
positive influence on the players on the Huskies Canada West championship
winning team and made countless big plays to help the Huskies win games. At the
moment, Wooster goes down as the best and most influential captain in the
history of the Huskies women’s team.
“She is so calm on
the ice, and she just like always knows where to be,” said Willoughby. “She is
an unreal player. I miss her.”
After the Huskies
posted a 5-1 record in the pre-season, Willoughby is looking forward to getting
going for real.
“I’m just happy to
get my fifth year started and see what it can bring,” she said.
Smith still thinks about missed SFMAAAHL
title chance
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| Chloe Smith in action for the Wildcats in March of 2016. |
Smith, who is an
18-year-old rookie forward with the University of Saskatchewan Huskies women’s
hockey team, was playing our her 16-year-old season of midget AAA eligibility
with the Wildcats in 2015-16, when they advanced to the Saskatchewan Female
Midget AAA Hockey League championship series. The Wildcats posted a 19-6-3
regular season record but were underdogs in the best-of-series to the Saskatoon
Stars, who were the defending league champions and topped with SFMAAAHL with a
24-4 record.
The Wildcats
traveled to Saskatoon and took Game 1 of the series 4-3. The Stars took the
next two contest by respective 1-0 and 2-1 scores.
In Game 4 of the series
in Swift Current, the Wildcats jumped out to a 3-1 lead in front of a raucous
home crowd at the Fairview Arena with 4:39 to play in the second period. For a
short time, it appeared the two teams would have to play a series deciding Game
5 in Saskatoon.
The Stars proceeded
to rally cutting the Wildcats edge to 3-2 heading into the second intermission.
Saskatoon netted the equalizer to force a 3-3 tie in the third and 14-year-old
forward Grace Shirley fired home the game and series winning goal at the 4:08
mark of overtime to give the Stars a 4-3 win in the game and a 3-1 victory in
the series.
For Smith, the
result of that series still stings.
“It still bugs me,”
said Smith. “That was a good series.
“All of us actually
kind of talk about it nowadays too. It still bugs us, because we had a good team
that year.
“We were wanting to
go a little further than we did. Things happened. Saskatoon, they stepped it up
in that third period, so it was good for them.”
Smith is playing on
the Huskies with defender Kayla Kirwan and goalie Jasey Book, who were also
teammates on the Wildcats club that fell in the 2016 SFMAAAHL title series.
Besides the team success, Smith had a breakout year offensively on a personal front
netting 13 goals and 19 assists in 26 regular season games to finish fourth in
the SFMAAAHL scoring race in 2015-16.
She became the
Wildcats captain in her final campaign with the team last season. Overall, the
SFMAAAHL title loss doesn’t dampen the memories Smith made with her hometown
squad.
“We have a great
organization,” said Smith. “Terry Pavely is the head coach, and he has done
good job with that organization. It is one of the ones where lots of girls come
to and they leave happy.
“It is a great group
of girls, a good city. I loved my years with the Wildcats. They were awesome.”
Nogier suffers serious injury with Moose
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| Nelson Nogier suffered a serious shoulder injury. |
On Wednesday, Ken
Wiebe of the Winnipeg Sun reported Nogier suffered a shoulder injury playing for
the Manitoba Moose in an American Hockey League pre-season game in Grand Forks,
N.D., last Friday. The 21-year-old, who is a graduate of the WHL’s Saskatoon
Blades and Red Deer Rebels, suffered the injury on his first shift in the Moose’s
3-2 victory over the Iowa Wild.
It is expected that
Nogier will need surgery.
Last season as a
rookie professional, Nogier, who stands 6-foot-2 and weighs 191 points, recorded
two goals, 11 assists and a minus-five rating in the plus-minus department in
60 games with the Moose. He finished the 2016-17 campaign with a 10-game call
up to the NHL’s Winnipeg Jets, where he posted a minus-one rating as the Jets
posted an 8-2 record over that stretch.
Nogier played 235
career regular season games for the Blades and Rebels from 2011 to 2016
recording eight goals, 42 assists, 196 penalty minutes and an even rating in
the plus-minus department.
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