The Amherstburg Admirals will head into their 2024-25 Provincial Junior Hockey League (Junior C) season on a bit of a high note.
The visitors came very close to upsetting a veteran-laden Canadiens who are the defending provincial champions, in a game last Friday night.
Up 1-0 late in the third period, the Admirals were edged 2-1 in their only pre-season game. They open their regular season back in Lakeshore Friday night and host the Dresden Kings on Saturday at the Libro Centre.
“It’s not always about wins in the pre-season. It’s more about the game plan and how it goes,” said Amherstburg head coach Beau Hunter, who returns for his second season behind the bench.
The Admirals went up quickly on Friday when rookie Rory Sandison scored just 1:56 into the game.
Keeping the visitors ahead all night were goalies Jay Procter and Russell Vaughan who split the time and turned away a combined 49 shots.
“I thought they both played amazingly and kept us in the game. Against teams like Lakeshore that’s what it’s going to take to win,” noted Hunter.
By the third period it was obvious that the Admirals were tired and could not muster a single recorded shot on the Canadiens. Lakeshore’s Nicolas Rosati and Aedan Sullivan scored 25 seconds apart to give the hosts the win.
After the game Hunter said that many of his players are coming from much shorter games and that the longer periods in junior is something that they will have to get ready for.
“We have a lot of guys who have never played 60 minutes before. To play 60 minutes is a big adjustment.”
Getting ready for the 42-game regular season schedule, Hunter said there was considerable preparation ahead of them this week at practice.
“We have a lot of work to do, defensive zone coverage and making the simple plays.”
Amherstburg will have a lot of new faces this year including rookie goalies Vaughan and Procter.
On the blueline Jadyn Brown (2-9-11), Maxton Evans (2-5-7), Jake Goudreault (3-11-14) and Declan McGrath (0-1-1) are back. Darby Drouillard (6-8-14) comes over from Wheatley and Jack Bulmer (6-20-26) was with Essex last year. They will be joined by rookies Freddie McCroy and Cooper Bulmer.
Up front, just five returnees in Ryan Dufour (7-9-16), Finnegan Russett (6-10-16), Brett Jones (3-8-10), Allan Djordjevic (4-6-10), and Cole Vaillancourt (3-2-5). They will be joined by rookies Brady Drouillard, Logan Price, Cory Leach, Kaden Juodkins, Rory Sandison, Jack Wycisk and Wyatt Goudie.
SLAPSHOTS: The home opener on Saturday will see the puck drop at 7:30 p.m. Youth under 14 get in for free… The night before the Admirals open the season in Lakeshore where the Canadiens will unveil their championship banner… GM Andrew Sykes reports that veteran Connor Demelo will not be returning. Monday night the Admirals announced that they have signed Amherstburg native Drew Booker. The forward played the past three seasons with the Jr. B LaSalle Vipers. Admirals set to open the regular season this weekend
By Fred Groves
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