Oct. 12 will mark the beginning of the Carleton Ravens men’s hockey team’s season, as Carleton will face cross-town rival University of Ottawa at the Ice House.
The Ravens will be looking to start the season off strong after a disappointing first round playoff exit at the hands of the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) Patriotes.
The Ravens have had a busy off-season with the arrival of nine new recruits and the departure of key coaching staff and veteran players. Head coach Marty Johnston left the team to take a job as a member of the American Hockey League’s (AHL) Manitoba Moose coaching staff. Johnston left the team with an impressive record of 129-42-12. Former assistant coach Shaun Van Allen, who has been with the team since 2010, replaced Johnston as interim head coach.
“How it worked in the past is all three of [Johnston, Van Allen, and Ryan Medel] worked together. Marty probably delivered the final message but all three of us were in here working together and figuring out what’s the best plan to come up with and that’s not going to change, we’re still doing that,” said Van Allen, who will coach alongside new assistant coaches Mark Cavallin and Joey Manley.
First-line center Michael McNamee graduated and joined the Syracuse Crunch of the AHL. Other key losses included assistant coach Ryan Medel, and forwards Brent Norris and Corey Durocher.
“A Michael McNamee is a special offensive player, Brent Norris and Corey Durocher those guys are ‘200 foot players.’ They play power play, they play penalty kill. McNamee was a first-line center at the university games, those guys are hard to replace . . . I think this year we’re going to try and spread the scoring out more. We’ve been really happy with how practice and training camp has gone, it’s been really good,” Van Allen said.
The Ravens added nine new players to the team this off-season, beginning with the signing of Jared Steege, a former Ottawa 67 who has been praised for his strong two-way game and physical presence. Other off-season acquisitions include Dakota Odgers, Cody Caron, Matt Sozanski, Benji Curtis, Michael Constantine, and Alex Mann.
Recently, two veteran players returned to their hometown of Ottawa to join the Ravens team: Fabian Walsh, a four-year U Sports veteran from the Dalhousie Tigers, and Dalen Hedges, who transferred from Northeastern University of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
The new additions will have a tough time filling the roles of the now departed players. McNamee, Norris and Ryan Van Stralen combined for 78 points throughout last season. The team also hopes to make a return to the U Sports University Cup, which they qualified for in 2016, but failed to make it to last season.
Early in the season last year the Ravens struggled to stay consistent and started with a record of 10-7-1, splitting back-to-back games eight times. This year, in hopes of remedying the early struggles, the Ravens will go on a road trip starting on Sept. 22 against Western and ending with three games against NCAA teams.
“[The team] is still a work in progress, we’ve only practiced four times and to be honest we’re moving guys around, trying to see where they fit, we haven’t come up with the right thing yet and I think the preseason is going to sort that stuff out,” Van Allen said.
“You’re always striving for consistency. We have probably the hardest schedule we have ever had before that’s been addressed with our guys and they realize that . . . You have to have hard work, we want to be aggressive on the forecheck, we don’t want to take anyone lightly, we want to prepare to play every single game, focus on us and the process of how we’re playing,” Van Allen said.
The Ravens were able to turn their season around in the final stretch going 6-2-2 and finishing the season with a record of 16-9-3, good enough for fourth in Ontario University Athletics (OUA). In the first round of the playoffs, Carleton came up against UQTR who were able to eliminate the Ravens.
To make it through the tough OUA playoffs, Carleton will be relying on returning players to step into their roles as leaders on the team.
“You’re only going generally as far as your best players take you . . . to me, Brett Welychka and Ryan Van Stralen should be elite players. We’re hoping for a big year from Alex Boivin . . . David Weckworth is always in phenomenal shape and we need a big year out of him. It’s hard for me to single guys out because we’ve had so many guys that I’ve been so pleased with,” Van Allen said.
Van Allen also noted how impressed he has been with the physical shape in which the players have entered training camp and said he is extremely pleased with the level of play that the team has practised at.
The training camp and pre-season has been and will continue to be a tough competition for the open spots available on the team.
“It’s going to be an open competition for the forwards to see who can fit in those 12 forward slots opening night, same with the six [defence] slots and two goalie slots,” Van Allen said.
The team will continue with the strategies that Johnston and Van Allen have worked with over the past years.
“We still want to have an aggressive forecheck, we’re going to be a good skating team, we’re going to be a little more physical than we have been in the past and I don’t want us to be an easy team to play if we’re going to be beat, I want the other team to know that they had to play a full 60 minutes to beat us,” Van Allen said.
The team still has to finalize their line-up and Van Allen said he readily admits that there is still a lot of work to be done before the season officially starts on Oct. 12.
“Your hopes are always to go to nationals, but that’s so far away . . . we just want to put in the work,” Van Allen said.
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