The Huskies men’s hockey team is well rested and ready for playoffs after their impressive season, finishing first overall in the Canada West with a 22–6 record.

They have earned home ice advantage and a bye to the semifinals, which will get underway at Rutherford Rink on Feb. 26 when they host the fifth-seeded University of Calgary Dinos. The Huskies won the season series between the two clubs 4–0, with two of the four games needing overtime.

The other semifinal will see the second-seeded University of Alberta Golden Bears host the Mount Royal University Cougars, who are seeded third.

Calgary finished fifth in the CanWest with a 12–12–4 record. They won their quarter-final matchup versus the University of Manitoba Bisons on the road in the third game of a best-of-three series, by a score of 6–1, on Feb. 21 to book their ticket to the semifinals.

The bye weekend gave head coach Dave Adolph plenty of time to prepare the Huskies for what he hopes will be a long and successful playoff run.

“We finished first place and met our objective throughout the season. Now we’ve been working on our game again. We’ve spent the last five practices refining what we’ve been doing all year,” Adolph said.

One player heading into the playoffs on a hot streak is goaltender Jordon Cooke, who finished first in regular season wins with 19, setting a new program record. Cooke also boasts a league leading .921 save percentage.

Offensively, it’s not one line that’s going to lead to playoff success, but having the rookie trio of Kohl Bauml, Levi Cable and Andrew Johnson firing on all cylinders may be just the spark that the club needs.

Bauml (33 pts), Cable (28 pts) and Johnson (26 pts) are one, two, and three in CanWest rookie scoring, respectively. The three first-year players are the only Huskies to finish in the top 20 in league scoring, providing the catalyst for the club’s high-powered offence that finished with 113 goals in just 28 games, an average of four goals per game.

“We all think alike. Me and AJ [Andrew Johnson] played together for a year back in midget, so that kind of gave us the chemistry right off the bat — and then Cabes [Levi Cable] fit in pretty effortlessly. Obviously we got some pretty good goal scorers. We’re all pretty fast — not the biggest line, so we have to use what we got to our advantage,” Bauml said.

Adolph doesn’t see anything changing come playoff time.

“Experience plays a large part in playoff success and these guys have none, so it’ll be an interesting scenario for them, but you know, they’ve been a dominant group all year,” Adolph said. “It doesn’t matter who they’ve
played and when they’ve played, they’ve been good, so I don’t see it changing.”

The confidence Adolph has in his young players is clear. Their work ethic and compete level has rubbed off on their teammates.

“I think more than anything they haven’t cheated once all year. They’ve put in their time, they’ve practiced hard, they play the game the right way — you know that’s all those clichés, but they do. They don’t cut any corners and I think that has set the tone for some of our older guys,” Adolph said.

The youngsters may put the puck in the net, but make no mistake, the playoffs are all about a team effort and the dressing room is full of guys who know how to win.

“Our dressing room is full of leaders. It’s not just who’s wearing the A’s or the C’s — who are the fifth-years, who are the first-years,” Bauml said. “You look around the room, I bet you half our dressing room, if not more, were captains on their junior teams.”

Game one of the best-of-three series is set for Feb. 26 at 7 p.m., with game two set for Feb. 27 at 7 p.m. Game three (if necessary) will go on Feb. 28. All playoff contests will be played at Rutherford Rink.

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Curtis Fontaine

Photos: Logan McVeigh