Petes head coach wants to give fans a team they can cheer on

Rob Wilson doesn’t hide his desire to be aggressive in the trade market in an effort to go for it this season.

The Peterborough Petes head coach feels his team is entering the season in a very similar position to 2019-20 when they had the secondbest record in the Eastern Conference and were the only team with a winning record against the firstplace Ottawa 67’s when COVID-19 shut down the season two weeks before playoffs.

“It’s a cycle in junior hockey and we feel we’re at that part of the cycle where we should be one of the teams to create interest this year,” Wilson said.

The Petes will kick off a new season at 7:05 p.m. Thursday when they host the Erie Otters at the Memorial Centre. Wilson believes it’s important for the organization, trying to recover from the pandemic, to give the fans something to be excited about.

“Everybody had a real buzz around here in 2019-20,” he said. “Especially where we were in the standings and our level of competition against Ottawa was extremely exciting for everyone. I remember talking to scouts and everybody was so excited to watch that series. We both had to get there to play each other, but everyone felt confident we had a real shot. I think for us it was hard to deal with.”

The Petes were aggressive that year, acquiring Akil Thomas, Jacob Paquette and Hudson Wilson to beef up their lineup. With two overage spots still open and high-end players likely to be available at the trade deadline, Wilson said he’s told his players to expect changes. He said he and GM Mike Oke and the team executive are all on the same page.

“We all know there is a lot of work to do and where things end up in the end we’ll see, but when we sit as a coaching staff and with Mike and we go through things we have a common goal. There are always three or four teams it seems every year in each conference that think they have a shot and we want to be one of them.”

Wilson has confidence in the nucleus up front, is excited to see the progress made by a defence that got plenty of experience last season and he likes the progress of goalie Michael Simpson. It’s a solid starting point, but he sees room for improvement.

“Adding more depth at every position is going to be important. You can’t rely on three or four guys to do the bulk of your scoring. That just doesn’t work. We’re going to have to get more top-end heavy up front,” Wilson said.

“We’ll see how guys make out on the back-end at all different positions, not just five-on-five but on power play and penalty kill, but we have a good base where we can take our time to really fill our needs when it comes. It’s more of a marathon than a sprint and, right now, we like where we’re starting.”

Wilson said a number of his players attended the final games of the Mann Cup when the Peterborough Century 21 Lakers set post-renovation attendance records on the way to a record fourth straight Canadian senior-A lacrosse championship. It was good for them to see how the city backs its teams at playoff time.

“I’ve been in that rink when you’re in the playoffs as a player and things are rolling and it gets pretty exciting around town. You become the talk of the town. I’m hoping we’ll be there long before playoffs,” Wilson said.

Wilson has confidence in the nucleus up front, and is excited to see the progress made by a defence that got plenty of experience