Last season, Westminster got off to a slow start, opening the season 1-3. Two of those losses were by one goal, the third by two goals.
And then something changed.
Starting with a 3-0 win over Hotchkiss at Flood-Marr in Milton, Mass., the Martlets went on a tear, reeling off 12 wins through the end of the season.
Their hard work would ultimately pay off with a Founders League championship, the fourth in school history, built off a stellar 14-6-6 record. In other words, from Dec. 15 onward, they lost but three games the rest of the season.
Fast forward to this season, when the Simsbury, Conn., prep school has had a similarly slow start, going 2-6-1 in their first nine games, matching their loss total from last season. Time for something to change again?
"I don’t think our record is indicative of the team that we are," head coach Tim Joncas said. "We got off to a slow start. People always look at results. There’s not a lot of hockey people out there who typically can understand how to look at stats and data, they just simply look at outcomes and make assumptions. Through our first six games this season, our goals-against average was 2.20 per game, and we’re 1-5. (When) you’re only giving up two goals a game, you should be winning more than you’re losing. But we had a hard time putting pucks in the net.
"Guys went home for break and obviously had to be a little bit disappointed with the way the start went, but at the same time I thought our games were good, the one missing piece is obviously just bearing down and putting pucks away."
Sure, the team lost some offense over the summer, most notably because of the departure of forwards Jordie McKenna (14 goals and 14 assists in 26 games, now playing with the Halifax Mooseheads of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League) and Ignat Belov (16 goals and 10 assists in 26 games, the UConn commit now playing with the Maine Nordiques of the NAHL and in the USHL). And they also lost goalie Ian Shane, who had a stellar 1.86 goals-against average and a sharp .937 save percentage. But every team loses something from one season to the next in prep hockey, so it was back to the whiteboard.
At the break, the coaching staff gathered to figure out a solution.
"We watched a lot of film over the break and made some changes, and (we didn't do) a complete reboot but certainly made some changes just trying to reinforce those changes," said Joncas, 39. "We just put together two good games, tied (Trinity-Pawling) on the weekend, beat Taft (Wednesday) night, 5-1.
"It’s a process, it’s making sure you know what you have and making the most out of what you have. We’re a really good team, but to win, period -- it’s hard to win. You kind of have to pay attention to the details of the game and also finish pucks and obviously keep pucks out of your own net. I like our group a lot, it’s a great group of kids, it’s fun to go to the rink every day."
Offense this year will have to come from top returning players Wyatt Pastor, Jake Monroe and Darion Benchich, the team's early leading scorers. Returning defenseman Ryan Pineault is also a key component.
Making the changes over the break was essentially getting back to basics as coaches and as players, Joncas said.
"I think sometimes as coaches we get so laser-focused on just kind of getting through things in practice and making sure we’re checking boxes, and really not drilling down to the finer details of the game, trying to ... have consistent language and vernacular for the kids so they understand concepts better," said Joncas, a graduate of Westminster (2000) who was promoted to coach for the 2007-08 season. These days, the Branford, Conn., native is also the athletic director and associate director of admissions at Westminster.
"The changes we made really were just more about how we presented the content to the kids, and so doing more film sessions, doing more film, stopping practice more frequently to talk about, 'This is why we want to do it this way, this is where we should be in this situation,' and really just trying to engrain these principles into their heads. And it’s worked.
"It’s actually been enjoyable to get back to the pure teaching of the game. And that’s the problem a little bit with prep, our schedule, it’s so condensed, you’re so preoccupied with who you’re playing on Wednesday, or Saturday or Monday, sometimes that we forget that we’re still teachers and we still need to teach the kids how to play the game the right way.
"Admittedly, I got away from that a little bit at the beginning of the season, I just kind of made assumptions since we’re an older group now we’re back to doing the things the way we used to do things."
Westminster has a series of good tests ahead for its new approach, facing nemesis Salisbury on the road on Saturday, Canterbury at home on Wednesday and red-hot Loomis Chaffee in Bridgeport on Jan. 24.
Paul Grant is an editor and a writer for HockeyJournal.com and Seamans Media. He previously oversaw hockey content at ESPN.com and Sporting News. You can connect with him at pgrant@hockeyjournal.com.
