On the same weekend the Brooks Bandits earned their first Alberta Junior Hockey League title, the Okotoks Oilers took their first major steps of the offseason to remedy the franchise’s championship drought.
The Oilers held their annual spring camp, April 13 to15 at Centennial Arena in Okotoks. The team is preparing for a revamped team come the 2012-13 season after several key contributors graduated from the Junior A team.
“Ultimately we’re looking for everything,” Oilers head coach James Poole said of what he wants to see from the prospects. “There’s going to be some turnover this year. It’s what happens with the 20-year-olds and having eight of them. So we’re looking for guys that are ready to step into our lineup.”
A bevy of talented forwards graduated from Junior A hockey, including the top four scorers from last season: Jon Turk, Tyler Krause, Derek Bacon and Alex Kromm.
Poole is putting a premium on talent in his assessment of prospects.
“We’d like to get some younger guys that can step in at least a top-nine capacity,” he said. “We think we’ve got some players in this camp that are very skilled. Of the top 10 scorers in the Midget AAA league we’ve got five of them in our camp. In the Minor Midget AAA league of the 30 top scorers we’ve got 15 of them in our camp.”
Some of the standouts at the three-day camp included Calgary Buffalloes Midget AAA forward John Edwardh, the Alberta Midget Hockey League’s second leading scorer in 2011-12 with 30 goals and 56 points, as well as Calgary Flames winger Mitch Amatto, said Poole.
“We’ve got guys that have had some success in those levels putting the puck in the net and contributing offensively,” Poole said. “Sometimes that doesn’t translate to Junior, but at this camp we’ve got some guys we think can make that jump next year and contribute right away.”
Poole said he expects to also round out his roster via off-season trades or through acquisitions of veterans of the Western Hockey League or Junior B leagues.
“We’re going to sit down as a staff and try and figure out what we found from this camp here and what are the other pieces that we still need to go and find,” he said.
On the heels of a second-round playoff exit in six games to the Olds Grizzlys, Poole stated a desire to increase the size and grit quotient on the Okotoks roster.
“Looking at our playoff failures, I guess you’ll call it, a lot of those things have to do with maybe being a little too small, a little bit too soft upfront,” Poole said. “Obviously we want to continue with our skill and speed that we have, but also try and get a little bit bigger, a little grittier and (add) a little more guys that are willing to go out there throw the body and finish checks on the forecheck.”
At the other end of the ice, the Oilers are entering a new era in goal after 21-year-old netminder Michael Tadjdeh closed out his final days of Junior eligibility in 2011-12, his second full-season in Okotoks.
The goaltending duties have been left in the capable glove hand of Jared D’Amico. The Calgary native posted a 9-6-2 record with a .912 save percentage and 2.62 goals against average in his rookie season in the AJHL.
“You look at his numbers and he did a good job this year,” Poole said of D’Amico. “You know hopefully he has a great summer and comes back ready to take that number one job.”
The Oilers bench boss said the next move is to find a capable netminder who will offer the positional challenge needed in between the pipes.
“We want to bring in someone that’s going to push him, we’re not just going to hand it to him and Jared knows that,” Poole said. “We want some competition in the position and hopefully we can find that (at camp) and if not then we’ll look at other options to try and find that.”
The spring camp was something of a cornucopia of prospects from southern Alberta with the majority being 1994 to 1996 born players. Poole said it’s important to shoot straight from the hip in assessing the young players’ level of development.
“The 1994s are done Midget and they need a place to play next year,” Poole said. “Part of what we’re looking for is the 1994s that we think are legitimately ready to play for us next year and we’ll bring them back to main camp, the guys that we don’t think are going to fit into our plans next year we’re going to let them know straight away so they can go to other teams and secure a position that way.”
