The Portland Winterhawks had a good run last season, exiting the playoffs in the second round to a very good Kamloops Blazers team. Head coach Mike Johnston said that at the beginning of the year they had a great start to the season and were one of the top teams at Christmas break. They acquired Chaz Lucius around that time after the World Junior Championship tournament.
“I thought the second half we had a lot of travel, we had some injuries, we struggled a little bit at times and then in the playoffs were beat by a pretty good Kamloops team,” Johnston said.
But despite the exit in the second round, Johnston had high praise for some of their younger guys.
“A lot of our young guys took good steps I thought and I think with our overall group we just stayed with the same team, we didn’t make any trades,” Johnston said.
When it comes to next season, he noted the focus on the younger players as well. He said that there’ll be some younger guys that’ll make the team next year that’ll be interesting. Johnston specifically noted Kyle McDonough and Luke Myhre.
“You have players coming back for their second year that should take big steps,” Johnston said.
Of those returning, Johnston specifically touched on Diego Buttazzoni and Rhett Ravndahl. He also said that their defense should be quite strong overall.
“Alex Thompson should take a step as a young guy as well,” Johnston said. “It’s always key for your team for the young guys to see after their 16-year-old year or 17-year-old year, what type of steps they take.”
Johnston seemed quite confident in next year’s group, noting the veterans they’ll have returning.
“I would expect through the course of the first half we’ll evaluate our group and then make some tweaks and adjustments to it maybe around Christmas time for any of the needs that we have or we feel for the second half and for playoffs,” Johnston said.
With the two draft selections that Portland had in this year’s NHL Draft in Nashville in Luca Cagnoni and Carter Sotheran. With Carter getting drafted to the Philadelphia Flyers, Johnston said that a lot of that was projection and size. Cagnoni was drafted to the San Jose Sharks shortly before Sotheran was taken in this year’s draft.
“It was only his first year in the league, but I thought he had a great first year playing in our top four most nights,” Johnson said. “Then Luca after coming in and playing as a 16-year-old with us and last year I thought he took big steps. A lot of nights he was our number one minute guy and really had a good season overall.”
While both players are still young in the team’s group, it’s clear that they’ll be looked upon as leaders in the coming seasons. Johnston said that he could see Cagnoni taking a bit more charge last year and that he expects Carter to start mentoring some of the young defensemen. Despite them both being defensemen, Johnston made it clear that their style of play is different in how they approach the game.
“They have a lot of good examples for guys to look up to on our team because we were fortunate last year with Robbie Fromm-Delorme and Dante being our 20-year-olds, but also our 19-year-olds Klassen, O’Brien, Stefan are really good veteran players and McCleary that showed those guys how to be a pro, how to be a Western Hockey League (WHL) guy,” Johnston said. “I think that’s really important, that they were still learning from the older guys.”
For Cagnoni to have success at the next level, Johnston said that he has to play that dynamic high-paced game. He said that Carter would be a good two-way defenseman and will have to be really good defensively, but that he has some really good offensive skills and that he’s big. Johnston said that Sotheran can use his size to show how it can be an asset.
With Jan Spunar going undrafted this year, Johnston said that he’ll be able to get more exposure next season. He noted how Spunar has only been in the league for one year.
“I thought he played his best hockey in the second half,” Johnston said. “So, depending on which teams saw him in the second half, they probably liked the way he played, I would expect he’ll be an invite to training camp with some teams. But if he continues to play like he did in the second half last year, I think he’ll be fine.”
When it comes to goals that the team has going into next season, Johnston touched on how he thinks it’ll be similar to last season.
“Well I would expect overall from the coaches and the players we’d have a similar goal that we want to be a top 10 team in the first half and then we want to make sure that we have a really deep playoff run to put ourselves in position to have a shot at the championship next year,” Johnston said.
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