He knows which players will make up his top line and who his starting goalie will be this weekend in Chilliwack at the Bauer BCHL Showcase, but beyond that Salmon Arm SilverBacks coach Troy Mick isn’t revealing much.
Mick’s club finished up the preseason with a 1-1 home tie on Friday and a 4-1 road loss on Saturday, both versus the Penticton Vees. Penalties and a couple of goals netminder Angus Redmond would like back contributed to the setback in Penticton.
The ’Backs’ five exhibition games were useful though as Mick has selected Alex Gillies with Evan Anderson and newcomer Landon Smith, who spent last season with Chicago and Cedar Rapids of the United States Hockey League, as the top line. Adam Clark will start in goal against the Victoria Grizzlies on Saturday at noon.
The team’s captain and alternates won’t be announced until the weekend. Forechecking and defensive-zone assignments will not be concrete until some regular-season games have been played.
“It’ll be an ever-evolving process,” said Mick. “We’ll go through all that this week, have a bit more of a walk through.”
Same with penalty killing and power-play structure.
“It’s too darn early; we have a little bit of an idea, it’s just a matter of seeing who can play and who can’t.”
Part of the uncertainty has to do with injuries. Brendan Kennedy and Riley Hunt remain on the injured reserve list and now, young defencemen Cole Arcuri and Cole McCaskill have been sidelined too. That means Salmon Arm will begin the season with 21 on the active roster, one short of the maximum.
But with a clearer focus on coaching this season and the trust to leave the team in the capable hands of his assistants at practice, Mick knows his roster better than at this time last season.
“The biggest thing is we’ve identified what we need to address,” he said. “We know the identity of our club a lot more than we did last year. Having Brandon West be my associate coach, Kevin Kraus with his championships as a player and Eric Godard with his experience, the accountability on the ice makes our players work that much harder.”
Reviewing the preseason slate, Mick said the 5-1 win and 7-5 loss to Vernon showed the team is capable of scoring. The 2-1 loss to Merritt and 1-1 tie with Penticton shows they are able to compete in tight games too.
They’ll need to display those abilities this weekend when the games begin to count for real at the Showcase. The SilverBacks’ weekend itinerary is already set.
“We’ll go down on Friday afternoon, have a good team dinner and watch a game on Friday night,” said Mick. “It’ll be a good way to get rid of some of the nerves to have the players see what’s going on at the rink; we’ll kind of go from there.”
The Victoria Grizzlies provide the opposition for the SilverBacks in the first game, at noon Saturday, with Salmon Arm defenceman Zach Urban facing the club he was captain of last season.
Sunday brings a matchup against the Powell River Kings at 10:30 a.m.