The Rebuild
What’s the over and under on junior hockey’s vicious cycle?
What’s behind the perfect rebuild?
The Moncton Wildcats decided to tear it all down and build a championship calibre team. Overachieve or Underachieve? Have the Moncton Wildcats been too aggressive or too passive clawing their way back to respectability in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League? (Photo Credit Daniel St. Louis)
For all intents and purposes the Wildcats are on an impressive climb, going from 18th place with 31 points in 2016-17 to 14th place with 62 points and winning a Playoff round last season, to 9th with 81 points with two games remaining.
Nevertheless, the Wildcats rebuild has certainly faced its share of adversity, criticism and attention. (Photo Credit QMJHL)
Wildcats current Asst. Director of Hockey Operations Ritchie Thibeau takes us behind the scenes, and provides intriguing insight into the blueprint of a rebuild.
CE: With the rebuild and the last two seasons, there were obviously some very high expectations, but is the progression that the team has made what you expected?
RT: “Yeah for sure, we were 18th and 14th last year and we are battling for anywhere from between 6th and 8th this year, which if you going to ask me that at the end of the year, that’s what we were building for and we are expecting a long playoff run, but we are on target for what we had laid out and now it’s a matter of getting over the top and seeing how far we can get.”
“Our goal last year, we got to two rounds of the playoffs and our kids got a lot of experience and we are hoping to have a lot more playoff experience this year.” (Photo from a Rogers TV Broadcast in 2016-17)
CE: If you look at Saint John and Acadie-Bathurst Titan who are currently in their rebuilds, did you think that you were going to get to this point and with the start that the team had this with all the ups and downs, you should be probably 10 points better than you are right now?
RT “You know with the start we had the last year and this year, we could have been better at the end of the year that we ended up, that’s how we feel, but there’s always going to be ups and downs during the season, but the main thing is to get out of those.”
“This year we had to make a few changes to get out of that, but we are very confident in our direction now and to development of our players is being accelerated at this point because they are learning and we are very happy with that.”
CE: How important are free agents to a rebuild?
RT“It’s critical, when we started out , we knew we had significant holes and you can’t rush Draft picks into your lineup.” (Photo Credit Dylan Seitz)
“Free agents allows you plug holes, you know we had Brady Pataki and Dylan Seitz last year and as we Draft more kids and put more kids in our line up the need for free agents is less, but it doesn’t go away. There’s always kids out there that can come in and play a significant role and Moncton is a prime landing spot for those kids and they want to come play here, and we want to make sure we attract the best free agents available that can come in and play a role on our team.”
CE: With all the ups and downs the team has gone through this season, how do accurately progress with your evaluation of the team and where it has come from over the last two seasons?
RT: “For us when you’re looking into the future it’s about evaluating the individual and the players and seeing how they are progressing.”
“We have a number of players that we have drafted over the last few years that we are very happy with their development so the main thing for us is from the beginning of the year to end and into the playoffs that we see some improvements. You’ve see players like Jakub Pelletier that have gone from 60 some points last year to 80 pts plus this year, to Jordan Spence that from the begging of the season has gotten better, to guys like Desnoyers and guys that don’t get the limelight like the Stewart’s and the Foreman’s.
Those are guys that have come in and have found their role, last year they couldn’t get on the team and this year in the second half of the season we are in a playoff hunt for position and they are playing key minutes.”
CE: Looking back to the Jaxon Bellamy trade, that deal would eventually turn into Jordan Spence and Nicholas Kingsbury-Fournier?
RT:“Yeah, you never want to trade high Draft picks, that isn’t a game that we like to be in, but sometimes you have to.”
“We were able to turn those picks into a guy like Jordan Spence that really came in and filled that spot on defence. A couple of years ago we wanted to draft two defenceman and we did because we figured long term we needed defenceman. (Photo Credit Daniel St.Louis)
So this year because we had traded Bellamy and Jacques, we were able to draft Spence early and put him in our lineup and that’s why we went out to get a guy like De Jong because we needed to fill that second d spot that we traded away and we see Tristan is playing in our top six this year and we see him being a big part of our future.”
CE: With a lot of 19’s right now a lot of tough decisions to be made, projecting to next year what do you foresee?
RT: “We picked up a few 19’s at Christmas, that was strategic. We traded Anderson MacDonald and Nicolas Kingsbury-Fournier, we wanted to add a little bit more experience to the young kids because we felt playoff experience is very important and we wanted to add that experience to get a little further in the playoffs and give us our best chance possible.”
“Like you said we have to make some tough decisions at the end of the year because we have a number of 19’s, but we have a good selection as we have some guys that are very good as overagers and that could have pro opportunities so we didn’t want to get into a spot that we were going to short on 20’s either because of some kids that are close to pro.”
CE: Everyone says that year three is the go for it year, now that you are into year four, is it where you add and go or is it more strategic moving forward? Where do you see the team going next year?
RT: “Our goal as an organization is to have a good team every year, it’s not about building it up and tearing it all down.”
“What we went through two years ago is not something we want to go through again. Our goal is to build a program that is sustainable and that we have a very good team that competes every year.”
“That’s the way we look at it, we want to have depth, we want to have Draft picks and have kids that are ready to step in that aren’t playing here and if we get close one year than we can see what we will do. We want to build through the Draft and win that way.”
CE: How many Prospects do you have either at the Jr A or Midget AAA ranks that can come in next year and make the club?
RT: “We have Prospects in goal, defence and forward that we think are very close, we traded for Jeremie Hebert from Baie-Comeau at Christmas, he’s played in the league, and came in this year at a critical time and he’s a kid that’s going to battle for spot next year as an 18-year-old.”
“We have Sam Dow whose a good pick for us, and has played a few games with us as well as Zach Alchorn. We have some kids in Quebec that are very close like Langlois and Parent and we have other kids that are undecided whether it’s the NCAA or the QMJHL, like Hillier, Walker and Hayes, but we think our cupboard is in good shape, not great shape because you always want more, but we are a lot better off than we were two or three years ago.”
CE: Do you think you have developed well?
RT: “You know what, we are getting better and better.”
"Development is something that we had to learn to do as well, because over the years if you aren’t Drafting a lot and you are keeping your Draft Picks there’s no need for developing young kids because you don’t have any.” (Photo Credit Moncton Wildcats)
“We introduced Daryl Boyce to the program this year and its helped the kids learn on and off the ice how to be pros and better Q players and with John (Torchetti) coming in who’s a teacher, the video work and the one on one work that he does, the players are in a good environment, in which there are no excuses not to learn.”