Face of Oil Kings plays final game?

Captain Pysyk may suit up for Sabres' AHL team next season

By John MacKinnon, Edmonton Journal

May 25, 2012

In the end, Mark Pysyk looked mighty weary after his team was eliminated from the MasterCard Memorial Cup on Thursday night.

Which was hardly surprising. The Oil Kings captain had carried the Western Hockey League franchise for the last five years, really, not just in this breakthrough season.

Like his teammates, the 20-year-old Pysyk was sad at how a splendid 50-victory WHL season ended, which was normal.

"It's tough, there's not much we can say to the question you can't really ask, right?" the Sherwood Park native said after what was possibly his final game as a member of the Oil Kings, a 6-1 loss to the Shawinigan Cataractes.

"It sucks."

The Oil Kings believed they were primed to rebound from a pair of back-to-back losses in this tournament, but they simply didn't have it against the host Shawinigan Cataractes.

"I thought we started out pretty well, but things weren't going our way," said Pysyk, a Buffalo Sabres first-round draft pick who may well be headed for the Rochester farm club next season. "They capitalized on every single mistake we made.

"Give them credit, they did a great job."

If it was Pysyk's last game for the Oil Kings, it was a bitter ending to an impressive junior career, and long, productive final season.

Pysyk, the first Oil King ever to play for Canada's national junior team, helped Team Canada win a bronze medal at the world junior hockey championship and is a strong candidate to the club's most valuable player for the third straight season.

He has been the face of the franchise almost since the Oil Kings selected the Sherwood Park native third overall in the 2007 WHL bantam draft.

The Oil Kings believe as many as 20 of their 25-man roster will be back next season, which is encouraging, but not the immediate focus, obviously.

Those that won't be back include overagers Jordan Peddle, Rhett Rachinski, for a time the Oil Kings captain, and Tyler Maxwell.

Winger Kristians Pelss, who already has signed a three-year deal with the Oilers, may well be headed for their top farm club in Oklahoma City next season.

"This team we had this year wasn't even favoured to do much this year, let alone come to the Memorial Cup," said Rachinski, an Edmonton native and a two-way stalwart for the club for five years.

"We have a lot to be proud of in our room.

"The guys like me and Mark (Pysyk) that have been through all the bad years, Mark deserves the best and I wish him luck in the future."

The painful present was very much with Pysyk after the game, though.

"It's frustrating in the fact that we came all this way and didn't play our best," he said.

"It's definitely going to sting for a while, but the other teams are good.

"It's not like we just didn't play our best. Other teams forced us to do things that we weren't used to."

The Oil Kings probably will have to get used to not having the versatile, all-around defenceman next season, which will be a tough adjustment for them.

"Who knows what's going to happen next year," Pysyk said.

"I could be back, I could be in Rochester, who knows?

"If it is, it was a good year, and we did a lot of steps in the right direction for the organization. Hopefully, if I'm not back, they can win the Memorial Cup next year."

The City of Edmonton will hold a civic reception for the Oil Kings on Wednesday, a celebration of a splendid season, just not a national championship.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

‘It’s a crappy feeling’ — Oil Kings’ goalie Brossoit

Edmonton team disappointed with poor performance at Memorial Cup

By John MacKinnon, edmontonjournal.com

May 25, 2012

Edmonton Oil Kings Laurent Brossoit looks down after giving Shawinigan Cataractes a sixth goal during second period Memorial Cup action on May 24, 2012, Shawinigan, Que.

Photograph by: Jacques Boissinot , THE CANADIAN PRESS

SHAWINIGAN, Que. – Around here, the wistful optimists would say, ‘À la prochaine fois,’ (Until the next time), but that sentiment won’t salve the hurt for the Edmonton Oil Kings for a while.

Yes, this was a young Oil Kings team, with most of its players returning, but the Western Hockey League champions wanted to take a better run at the MasterCard Memorial Cup than they did.

They made a promising start, winning 4-3 over host Shawinigan in the tournament opener last Friday, but were eliminated Thursday night after a lopsided 6-1 loss to the Cataractes, who will now face the Saint John Sea Dogs in Friday’s semifinal.

Edmonton had been overmatched in losing 5-2 to Saint John, the defending champions, and confounded by the trapping, systematic London Knights in a 4-1 defeat.

If the Oil Kings were going to squeak into Friday’s semifinal, their best chance lay in playing Shawinigan, the one team they had beaten here. But the Cataractes, idle for 31 days after being eliminated from the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League playoffs in the second round, have gotten stronger as this tournament has progressed.

They clobbered the Oil Kings in the tiebreaker, pure and simple. Led by Brandon Gormley and Morgan Ellis, the two veteran defencemen Shawinigan traded for partway through the season, the Cataractes built a 2-0 first-period lead, then buried Edmonton with a four-goal second period as a crowd of 4,242 at the Centre Bionest sang and danced and roared its approval.

At the end of the game, Oil Kings goalie Laurent Brossoit, the MVP of both the WHL’s Eastern Conference final and championship final, stoically faced the media, shouldering far more of the blame than he needed to.

“I honestly don’t think we came here and showed Canada what we can do,” Brossoit said. “That’s why this one is going to dig that much deeper, because there’s being able to look at yourself and realize you tried your best.

“But for us, it’s going to hurt that much more because we don’t know what else we could have done.”

The 19-year-old goalie had a rough night Thursday, giving up one goal that caromed off the lively end-boards glass, and a couple of early second-period scores that clinched the game early for the home team.

“I don’t feel like I was the reason we were the first team out, I just feel like that momentum-builder save for a game is huge and I just feel that I didn’t provide that,” Brossoit said. “It’s a crappy feeling.”

For whatever reasons, the Oil Kings seemed out of their element. The youngest team in the tournament, with an average age of 17-1/2 years, they seemed over-awed. They lacked the emotional edge they had in the WHL playoffs.

After winning a thrilling seven-game series against the Portland Winterhawks, the Oil Kings weren’t able to regain that emotional pitch at the Canadian championship.

Only one line, the Henrik Samuelsson-Curtis Lazar-Stephane Legault, played with any snap or consistency here. Samuelsson scored the Oil Kings’ only goal Thursday.

“Our group, we’re so good at being focused, with the short-term memory thing the coaches have installed in us throughout,” Lazar said. “It was tested here, for sure.

“We came in here, made a couple of mistakes that ended up in the back of our net. Sometimes, you can get away with it; tonight, we just couldn’t.”

Turnovers were an issue all tournament for Edmonton. So was a lack of timely scoring.

Kristians Pelss, a 28-goal scorer, potted the first goal of the tournament in Edmonton’s 4-3 win over Shawinigan, then was heard from only once more. He and linemates Michael St. Croix, the team’s 105-point man, and Tyler Maxwell made little impact in the Memorial Cup, hitting a dry patch at the worst possible time.

But this was very much a team loss, a collective learning experience, painful as it was.

It’s easy to forget that in its previous four seasons, the expansion Oil Kings had never won a playoff game, let alone a series.

This team was meant to be a year away from contending for a championship. Then they got on a roll in late February, winning 11 straight to close out the regular season and another 11 in a row to start the WHL playoffs.

“The message at the end of the game was, ‘We’ve had a great season,’ ” head coach Derek Laxdal said. “We won 50 games in the Western Hockey League. We won 66 games, including playoffs, we won 67 with a win here. It was an outstanding season for our group and I told our kids not to hang their heads.

“When you get to an event like this, short-term competition, anything can happen ... I thought our group was paralyzed for the first three games. I didn’t mind the effort tonight. I thought the kids played hard, they finished the game the right way.”

The young, talented core of the team that includes Samuelsson, Lazar, Mitchell Moroz, Ashton Sautner and key defencemen Griffin Reinhart, Keegan Lowe and Martin Gernat all are expected back next season, as is Brossoit.

“It is bitter to end it how we did,” said Lazar, who turned 17 in January. “We’re all hungry now, we know what it takes to get here.

“This core group is returning, we know what it takes and we’ll be here again.”

So, next year looks promising, tough as it is for the players to see that right now, let alone take anything from it.

After the traditional handshakes, the Oil Kings all raised their sticks to salute the crowd, drawing a big round of applause.

Like Laxdal, who began his post-game news conference in classy fashion by thanking the City of Shawinigan and the tournament organizers, they were saying, “Thanks.”

They may also have been saying something else: See you next year in Saskatoon.

[email protected]

Twitter.com/rjmackinnon

Check out my blog, Sweatsox, at edmontonjournal.com/blogs

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Cataractes romp to 6-1 win, eliminate Oil Kings from Memorial Cup

By Bill Beacon, Canadian Press, edmontonjournal.com

May 25, 2012

Edmonton Oil Kings Klarc Wilson reacts after his team lost to their tie-breaker Memorial Cup ice hockey game against the Shawinigan Cataractes in Shawinigan, Que., on May 24, 2012.

Photograph by: MATHIEU BELANGER, REUTERS , edmontonjournal.com

SHAWINIGAN, Que. - The Shawinigan Cataractes got goals from six different players as they coasted to a 6-1 victory over the Edmonton Oil Kings in the tiebreaker game Thursday night at the Mastercard Memorial Cup.

The win put host Shawinigan (2-2) into the semifinal on Friday night against the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League champion Saint John Sea Dogs (2-1). It will be the Cataractes’ third game in as many nights.

The winner advances to the final Sunday night against the Ontario Hockey League champion London Knights (2-1).

The Oil Kings (1-3), never found their stride after beating Shawinigan 4-3 in the tournament opener. The last Western Hockey League club to be the tournament’s first casualty was Kelowna in 2005.

Yannick Veilleux, Morgan Ellis, Anton Zlobin, Kirill Kabanov, Michael Bournival and Pierre-Olivier Morin scored for the Cataractes, while Brandon Gormley and Michael Chaput each had two assists.

Henrik Samuelsson replied for the Oil Kings, who were outshot 31-30.

Shawinigan was coming off a 4-1 loss on Wednesday night to Saint John, the QMJHL powerhouse that is seeking a second straight Memorial Cup title.

Nerves were evident for both teams in the opening minutes until Veilleux opened the scoring at 7:30, tipping in a Gormley point shot after some good work from Kabanov.

Ellis was in the left circle to one-time a Gormley pass in during a power play at 17:01.

The Cataractes scored on their first shot of the middle period as Zlobin one-timed a back pass from Chaput past Laurent Brossoit at 1:54.

Proof that everything was going Shawinigan’s way came when Kabanov’s shot went off Brossoit, rebounded off the end glass, hit the goaltender again and rolled into the net at 2:59.

Bournival added a power play goal at 8:11 and it went from bad to worse for Edmonton when Morin picked off a pass and scored on a short-handed breakaway for a 6-0 lead at 13:59.

Edmonton finally got one with Shawinigan on a line change as Stephane Legault sent Samuelsson in on a breakaway to beat Gabriel Girard.

The Oil Kings, a young team that will have most of its top players back next season, arrived in Shawinigan only a few days after beating Portland in seven games in the WHL final. They never seemed to find their legs in Energy City, Shawinigan’s nickname because of its hydro power plant.

The Cataractes were knocked out in the second round of the QMJHL playoffs and had a 31-day break before the Memorial Cup.

Notes” Shawinigan took Peter Sakaris and Felix-Antoine Bergeron out and put Mitchell Maynard and Frederik Gaudreau into the lineup. Bergeron got a cross-check in the neck Wednesday against Saint John. . . QMJHL teams are now 3-3 all time in tiebreakers, while the WHL is 4-3.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Many positives for Oil Kings despite early Memorial Cup exit

By Cam Tait, edmontonjournal.com

May 25, 2012

Shawinigan Cataractes’ Frederick Gaudreau (11) anticipates a hit from Edmonton Oil Kings’ Travis Ewanyk (21) during the second period of their tie breaker Memorial Cup ice hockey game in Shawinigan, Que., on May 24, 2012.

Photograph by: MATHIEU BELANGER, REUTERS , edmontonjournal.com

EDMONTON — Local hockey fans and the Edmonton Oil Kings have been dating for the last month.

Now, with summer holidays looming, they will go their separate ways leaving a question begging to be answered: will the pair fall in love in the summer?

With an emotional separation Thursday night when the Oil Kings lost to the host Cataractes in a Memorial Cup tiebreaker in Shawinigan, Que., the relationship over will be scrutinized the next few months.

But should it?

Making the Memorial Cup in their fifth year of operation was an accomplishment in itself.

When they got to Shawinigan for the four-team championship there wasn’t a lot left in the tank — physically and emotionally.

Their 1-3 showing in Quebec certainly didn’t mirror their play in the regular season.

Laurent Brossoit struggled in goal. Snipers Michael St. Croix and Tyler Maxwell didn’t get a sniff. Their power play was non-existent.

But, perhaps sometimes we have to go through adversity in a first-time experience to grow better as a result.

Ask any member of the 1984 Edmonton Oilers who won their first Stanley Cup. They will tell you even though they thought the world was falling apart in 1983 when they lost to the New York Islanders in the Cup final, they learned so much.

And it led them to greatness soon after.

That’s hard to swallow today for the Oil Kings and, for that matter, the WHL, but it could pave the way for a better future.

Five years ago Edmonton didn’t have a major junior hockey club. The Oil Kings management was working feverishly hard in the spring of 2007 to get their Western Hockey League team on the ice for the following fall.

Still, in this hockey-crazed city, fans weren’t exactly knocking down the doors to get into home games.

It took time to re-introduce the WHL to Edmonton — not only on the ice, but the entire concept of major junior hockey and the big opportunities it provides young men.

Even though the Oil Kings made the playoffs in their second season, the community still didn’t embrace the team. Their third year was difficult, winning just 16 games.

Yet, however painful it was — costing head coach Steve Pleau and assistant coach Rocky Thompson their jobs — it served to be a turning point for this franchise.

You could see signs of improvement early on in the fourth season.

You could hear a voice slowing rising with confidence. The team was expecting to win hockey games, rather than worrying about how badly they would lose.

Even though they were swept in four games in the first round of the 2011 playoffs by the Red Deer Rebels, fingers were pointing to the next season as their breakout year.

And it was. Absolutely.

The Oil Kings had a 50-win season and were the WHL regular season champions with 107 points. A part of that great year was an 11-game unbeaten run to end the season.

They kept the momentum in the playoffs, with the crowning glory being a Game 7 home win over the Portland Winterhawks to capture the WHL championship. The record crowd putting a feather in the WHL’s cap as they set a new post-season attendance record.

The question now is what will the fans remember: the sting of the Memorial Cup, or the excitement of the WHL playoffs in Edmonton?

I think it’s obvious.

The last time Edmonton had such exhilarating playoff action was six years ago when the Oilers went on their unbelievable run to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final.

The Oil Kings gave fans an thrilling run, sure, but here’s the real exciting thing: they are only saying goodbye to five players off this year’s roster. They could be even better next year, and with the knowledge base fans now have of major junior hockey, who knows?

Come next fall, the Edmonton Oil Kings and their fans may have a relationship that could only be made in heaven.

[email protected]

Twitter.com/camtait

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Blades headed to T.O

By Daniel Nugent-Bowman, The StarPhoenix

May 25, 2012

Thanks to his extensive hockey lineage, Lukas Sutter has a pretty good idea of what to expect Monday when the NHL draft combine gets underway in Toronto.

His father, Rich, and five of his uncles played in the NHL and have worked for various teams after hanging up their skates, with Darryl currently coaching the Stanley Cup finalbound L o s Angeles Kings.

Throw in cousin Brandon's attendance at the 2007 combine, and Sutter has a leg up on the other 104 players taking part in the week-long, pre-draft fitness and interview sessions.

"I've grown up around the game and grown up around these types of situations," said the Blades' 18-year-old centre, who was the 39thrated skater in NHL Central Scouting's final rankings, released April 9.

"The biggest thing is trying to be yourself. That's what teams look for is a guy who's most comfortable in his surroundings."

Sutter will be joined by at the combine by Blades teammates Dalton Thrower and Andrey Makarov.

Thrower, who was voted the team's top defenceman this season, could stand to gain the most from the combine.

Backed by an 18-goal, 54-point performance during the WHL season - good for eighth in scoring among league rearguards - the North Vancouver product is currently ranked 26th by NHL Central Scouting and 29th by The Hockey News.

A solid showing for Thrower in Toronto could cement his status as a first-round pick.

"My goal is to go in the first round of the draft," he said. "It's been a goal of mind since the very beginning of the year. I worked my way up there. Hopefully, at the end, it all pays off."

After the Blades were eliminated in the first round of the WHL playoffs by Medicine Hat, Thrower spent a couple of weeks rehabbing a shoulder injury that caused him to miss the last five games of the regular season.

Since then, the 18-year-old has been pushing himself at the VO2 Max (aerobic) and Wingate (anaerobic) exercises, which are featured at the combine.

Now he's just anxiously waiting for Monday to come.

"It's definitely going to be a test, but it's something that I'm excited for," Thrower said. "I'm not going to be eating much that day, just with the nerves and everything. You just got to try and stay calm.

"You're going to go in there and work your hardest. If you do end up puking at the end of it, you know you gave it all you got and that's all that matters."

Thrower added that he's been working on his interviewing skills - something Makarov has been doing as well.

The Blades goaltender, who was named team MVP after posting 29 wins with a 3.01 goals-against average and a .913 save percentage, is in London, Ont., working out with a personal trainer.

But Makarov is more concerned about what he'll say to the representatives from the 30 NHL clubs than he is with his physical testing.

"I'm a goalie. I need to work out but I need to stop the puck, right?" said the 19-year-old, who's pegged as the seventh best goaltender available by NHL Central Scouting.

When asked what he plans to say, Makarov responded: "It depends what questions they ask me."

The Kazan, Russia native added he is looking forward spending time with 2012 world junior teammates Nail Yakupov and Mikhail Grigorenko, both of whom are slated to be selected within the first five picks of the draft.

Makarov will also have Sutter and Thrower there with him. Although the three are close friends on the Blades, Sutter knows the combine is all about business and doesn't leave much time for socializing.

The Lethbridge, Alta., native earned 28 goals and 59 points in 70 games this season - more than doubling his totals from the 2010-11 campaign - while also playing an effective a two-way role that earned him the Blades' defensive forward of the year honours.

And now he's hoping to show what else he can offer in Toronto.

"I think I've proved to a lot of people I'm capable of being a very successful hockey player this season," Sutter said. "I'm definitely prepared to go in there and leave that lasting impression."

dnugent-bowman @thestarphoenix.com

© Copyright (c) The StarPhoenix

Shewfelt enjoys new challenges

By Greg Harder, Leader-Post

May 25, 2012

Kyle Shewfelt isn't running from retirement.

The former Olympic champion has embraced a number of new challenges since hanging up his gymnastics gear in 2009. That includes his role at this week's Viterra Canadian Gymnastics Championships in Regina, where Shewfelt is serving as a special ambassador. Those duties wrap up Saturday, at which point he's slated to fly home to Calgary in anticipation of his first jaunt down a completely different athletic avenue.

"I'm running my first marathon on Sunday," revealed Shewfelt, who joked about the disparity of sprinting 24 metres towards a gymnastics vault compared to running 42.2 kilometres down a paved street. "It's nice to have a new challenge and increase your capacity for suffering (laughs)."

Despite his athletic credentials - he won Olympic gold at the 2004 Games in Athens - Shewfelt didn't just snap his fingers and become a long-distance runner overnight. He made the decision in January and has been preparing for the Calgary Marathon ever since.

"I love the training," said Shewfelt, who played hockey as a youngster, following the footsteps of his father Wes, a former member of the WHL's Brandon Wheat Kings.

"I felt for a while (after retiring from gymnastics) that I was lacking a physical goal, I was lacking a sense of purpose or a reason to exercise. I turned 30 in May. I decided I wanted to take on a challenge that I've always envied in others but never considered myself to be able to do. So I thought, 'Marathon, I guess I'll do it.' I've had a great experience so far."

Those sentiments also apply to retirement, which he described as "busy in a different way." Instead of travelling across the globe as a competitor, he's now racking up air miles as a motivational speaker. Meanwhile, Shewfelt is also getting ready to put his game face on for this summer's Olympic Games in London, where he's slated to work for CTV as a gymnastics commentator.

"It's another dream I had," he explained. "I remember watching the Olympics in '92 in Barcelona and really being glued to the TV imagining what it would be like to be in that role. It's really cool to be able to (make the) transition. I love gymnastics and I know all the athletes so well. To be able to share their stories with the Canadian public, I feel very honoured to be able to do it."

It will be Shewfelt's fourth trip to the Olympics but his first as an observer. He insists that won't be a problem since he came to grips long ago with the fact that his competitive career was over.

"When I was done I was done and I knew that," he said. "My heart told me and my body told me that it was time. I had done gymnastics for 21 years of my life and accomplished every goal I had. I can look back on my career and have absolutely no regrets. I climbed every mountain I wanted to climb. It was time to switch to some new peaks."

One of them involves helping other Canadian gymnasts reach new heights. Shewfelt has accepted a hands-on mentorship role with the next wave of Olympic hopefuls, feeling it's his duty to pass on what he has learned.

Shewfelt is already a huge source of inspiration after becoming the first Canadian to win an Olympic medal in artistic gymnastics and he hopes that accomplishment will continue to motivate others to follow his path.

"Success breeds success," added Shewfelt. "You look at someone like (three-time Olympic medallist) Karen Cockburn, who has been so successful in trampoline. I think the recent success of Jason (Burnett) and Rosie (MacLennan) is because Karen showed them it's possible. And in the sport of artistic gymnastics, I showed the community that it's possible. This sport isn't just for the Russians, it's not just for the Chinese and the Americans and the Japanese. A Canadian can go to that highest level and win. We're seeing it now (with recent international results from Canadian athletes). They have incredible potential to do great things come London."

[email protected]

© Copyright (c) Leader Post

Rutherford wins again

News Services

May 25, 2012

David Rutherford has another championship. The forward from Ladner helped the Florida Ever-blades beat the Las Vegas Wranglers 3-2 in overtime Wednesday in Estero, Fla., to capture the best-of-seven ECHL title in five games.

He finished the postseason with five goals and 12 points in 17 games, after putting up 25 goals and 55 points in 57 regular season games.

Rutherford, 25, won a CHL title last year with the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs, a WHL and Memorial Cup crown with the Spokane Chiefs in 2007-08 and a BCHL banner with the Surrey Eagles in 2004-05.

© Copyright (c) The Province