From illnesses, injuries to a suspension, the Grandview Steelers
faced its share of obstacles en route to falling 4-1 in their semi-
final series to the Delta Ice Hawks.
With last week’s 1-0 loss, which put Delta into the Pacific Junior B Hockey League final against Aldergrove, the Steelers’ season appeared as shredded as the cast of characters in the film Logan.
But as the score indicated, it wasn’t without a fight.
Despite missing as many as five regulars during most of the five games of the best-of-seven series, Grandview was within earshot of pushing it to a sixth contest, surrendering the only goal with 5:11 left in the third period.
Cameron Cuthbert’s marker, off a point shot, stood up as the winner for the Ice Hawks.
With a drained fuel tank, Grandview couldn’t overcome the various absences and ailments and finished the season shy of their goal of a championship final berth.
“It was tough, but I don’t think it was just scoring; we had strep throat running through our lineup and had five players out on any given game,” remarked Steelers general manager Aldo Bruno of last Friday’s loss. “We played our affiliate players and just weren’t healthy enough to get by (Delta).”
Missing the final game were veteran and playoff scoring leader Adam Rota, serving a two-game suspension for a hit-to-the-head penalty he received in Game 3, and defenceman Kristofor Zlomislic, who was one-half, with Lucas Mercer, of the Steelers’ top shutdown pairing. Others slowed or absent due to illness included Malcolm Huemmert, Ian Prevost and Bryson Wong.
The team pulled up affiliated Burnaby products Michael Milosavljevic and Ryan Riggs, who bolstered the forward depth but had to learn coach Stevan Matic’s system on the fly.
As it was, Matteo Paler-Chow did his best Ryan Miller imperson-
ation, turning back 34 shots as the host Ice Hawks held a healthy edge in scoring chances.
“Matteo played unbelievable in net for us, really he made that a game,” said Bruno. “He was really good throughout the playoffs.”
Outshot each game, the Steelers barely averaged 20 shots per night, while Delta created an average of 32 a game. It’s true, shots don’t exactly extend to quality chances, but in this case they reflected the flow of play.
It bucked a trend Grandview set prior to the start of the playoffs, where in the final five games of the regular season they were 4-1 and averaged 37 shots on net.
“I like some things we did and there were things I think we didn’t do as well,” said Bruno, who wore both the coach and GM hats for two decades before turning over the coaching reins to Matic last summer.
“Stevan has a slightly different philosophy with the type of players we brought in, but he did a good job. ... What I think we need is some bigger players, some sandpaper (players) to complement the smaller, skill guys. We need to get back to that mix, I think.”
And while scoring depth was addressed with a late-season deal for Ridge Meadows’ Keito Lee, another swap, which saw them acquire Wyatt Elmer, didn’t pay dividends when the 17-year-old jumped to junior A in January.
The club, which will lose four players due to graduation, has a decent nucleus to build around. However, it may have to find a new goalie tandem and rebuild on defence, said Bruno. Paler-Chow is poised to jump up a level, and the GM wouldn’t be surprised if backup Cale Dolan has a similar opportunity.
All in all, its no different than most offseasons, he said.
“It’s a pretty good nucleus that’s coming back,” said Bruno, “and we have good players to build around like (Mateo) Coltellaro and (Jacob) Siebenga. ... I expect we’ll focus on goaltending and defence first, because there’s potentially some holes there.”
