If winning is contagious then the disease could spread through the Okotoks Oilers dressing room as a result of an infected addition.
When the Oilers traded for defenceman Max Mowat from the Trail Smoke Eaters of the British Columbia Hockey League, on Sept. 11 in exchange for third-year forward Connor Collett, the Alberta Junior Hockey League team acquired a player with a Doyle Cup title and RBC Cup experience during his stint with the vaunted Vernon Vipers.
“My first year we went all the way until the RBC Cup and came second that was a great new experience for me,” Mowat said of the 2010-11 Vipers. “It showed all the leadership from the older guys and that’s something I can take into this season too.”
The 19-year-old said the Vipers’ secret to success, as one of the marquee franchises in the Canadian Junior Hockey League, comes down to just a couple fundamentals.
“It’s just sticking to the system, listening to the coach and working completely hard, ” said Mowat, who registered three goals and 25 points in two seasons with Vernon. “We were relentless, we weren’t the most skilled team, but we were the most hard working team.”
It’s a work ethic the defenceman has evidenced in his first week with the Oilers.
“The environment here I feel is the same as my first year with the Vipers,” Mowat said. “The guys are awesome, they work really hard.”
Mowat ended up on the Smoke Eaters roster in May as the final domino on a future considerations trade involving several organizations.
“We got a player from Trail, moved him to Nanaimo and took a guy by the name of Colton Cyr and we still needed to give (Trail) a guy by the end of the season and I was the one guy to go,” said Mowat, a Vernon resident. “I lived there for six years and was considered a hometown kid, loved the town and it was just unfortunate that I was the one to get traded.”
Being moved twice in the span of four months to go along with a recent rash of injuries, including a concussion last year, has Mowat motivated this season.
“I just want to prove that I can stay healthy this season and start doing what I need to do,” he said. “I want to put some points up and be good on the powerplay, the penalty kill and be a big guy.”
Mowat and Oilers’ centre Connor Hartley were teammates with the Vipers for the first half of the 2011-12 season. The latter said he was excited to hear Mowat joined the green and white.
“He’s good with having the puck (in possession) and with skating and he’s a 19-year-old so he’ll bring some leadership to some of the younger guys back there,” Hartley said. “He’ll do pretty much anything for the team so we’re lucky to have him in the room.”
Mowat joins a blueline spearheaded by three sophomore in Tariq Hammond, Robert Hamilton and Jordan Swenson.
Oilers head coach and general manager James Poole was on the hunt for another veteran blueliner after Matt Maleschuk’s retirement in the offseason due to post-concussion issues. In addition, former Brooks Bandits blueliner Matt Tyson chose not to report after being traded to Okotoks at the end of August.
“It sort of came out of the blue, Trail was in a situation that a defenceman wasn’t reporting to their team,” Poole said. “And they had expressed interest in Collett for over 12 months.
“We started looking into their defencemen and Max has a good resumé in terms of what he did in Vernon and I heard some good things about him as a player and as a person.”
Parting ways with Collett, the longest tenured Oiler at the time of the trade along with Scott Bolland, was not an easy decision for the general manager, especially with the introduction of Connor’s younger brother Mitch to the Oilers team this season.
“They enjoyed the fact they had the opportunity to play together this year and unfortunately hockey can be a tough game in terms of trades that happen,” Poole said. “It’s tough when you have to part with Connor Collett who’s a good kid and who did some good things for the organization.”
Collett, who could not be reached for comment, posted 22 goals and 55 points in 114 games as a hard-working two-way forward for the Oilers from 2010 to 2012.
The Oilers’ surplus of forwards with the additions of Western Hockey League veterans Tanner Olstad and Chris Collins made the deal plausible.
“We kind of saw that a top-six opportunity for Connor might not be there,” Poole said. “And he will get that in Trail.”
