Gens laying solid foundation

By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express

Winning a hockey game may only take 60 minutes, but winning a championship can take years.

For the Oshawa Generals, winning the Memorial Cup in the 2014-2015 season was the culmination of years of effort and trades to get them to their wining calibre. Now, the cycle resets.

For that reason, head coach Bob Jones is more than happy with his team’s performance, despite being eliminated in the first round of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) playoffs by the Kingston Frontenacs.

Besides, making the playoffs was the main goal for this season all along.

“I was quite pleased with the way the season ended,” Jones says.

For much of the latter half of the season, the Oshawa Generals were battling the Hamilton Bulldogs in a back and forth strife for the final playoff position in the Eastern Conference – a fight Oshawa eventually won as they went on to win seven of their last 10 games.

Now, as the club looks ahead to next season, Jones says the club is in a much better position than last year, mainly because the rebuildling Gens needed to sell a lot of their key players to recoup draft picks for this year.

Trades included moving former captain Michael Dal Colle and defenceman Stephen Desrocher to the Kingston Frontenacs and Whitby native Matt Mistele to the Sarnia Sting.

Now, with only a single overager in goaltender Justin Nichols, acquired prior to the trade deadline from the Guelph Storm, every other player on the roster is eligible to return.

“I think moving forward, we’re going to have the pieces to be a better team next year and then in year three, I think we should be a team that’s right on the cusp of a lot of the better teams in the league,” Jones says.

It was a plan that played well for the Generals last season, when a large majority of the roster was on the top for three or four years before hoisting the Memorial Cup. It’s something Jones hopes to see with his current club, and he says he actually looks forward to the challenge of working with a rebuilding team.

“You get a comfort level with your players when you don’t have to teach as much, your systems are in place,” he says. “The coaching becomes more about motivation and breaking down the other teams. You don’t have to worry so much about your own team.

He adds this year saw a lot of teaching at the start of the year, with 14 rookies on the roster.

“I think a lot of kids were overwhelmed at the start,” Jones says.

And it was up to the team’s returning core to be the motivation the younger players needed to make the transition to the OHL. For Jones, it was captain Anthony Cirelli, Joe Manchurek, Kenny Heuther and Mitch Vande Sompel that really stepped into those roles.

The four make up the top five point-getters on the club, joined by rookie Domenic Commisso. Heuther would end the season leading the team with 26 goals.

“Without a doubt, those guys brought a work ethic that our team needed when you got a lot of young guys,” Jones says. “I think your veteran core really has to show the kids what it takes to compete every night.”

Aside from some rough times on the ice throughout the regular season, Jones, acquired by Oshawa to replace coach DJ Smith when he moved on to be an assistant coach with the Toronto Maple Leafs, was also dealing with the separation from his family back in Windsor.

“They was the biggest challenge personally, just being away from my family,” Jones says.

But looking ahead, he says Generals are moving in the right direction.

“I think we’re a lot stronger than we were a year ago.”