Claimed: Strong Start for Saskatoon Coming from Good Team Play

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Strong Start for Saskatoon Coming from Good Team Play

 

Gabriel McAllister buries his team leading 8th goal of the year

 

After falling short last season in an impressive finals performance, the players of the Saskatoon Wild had one message: "Never again."

 

They made it clear that, while proud of all they had accomplished throughout the season, coming up short like this would not happen again. Failure was not an option for the new and improved Saskatoon Wild, and nothing short of a cup would be satisfactory. Coming out of the gate this season they've shown that they're one of the money teams this season, sitting pretty in second place in the VHLM. Their 3-1-1 record is impressive on its own, but even moreso when you consider the fact that one of those wins was the season opener against the Oslo Storm - the team's only loss to date.

 

So what has been the main factor in Saskatoon's success this season? Teamwork.

 

While last season's performance was strong, it doesn't quite stand up to what we've been seeing from this season's team. Currently all but one of the team's rostered players sits with a positive +/-, with a few of the practice squad members who fill in from the bench from time to time sitting with minuses. These numbers span from Daring Do's +1 all the way up to Emil Martinov's +8, leaving nine of Saskatoon's ten players with positive differentials.

 

At the same time, while McAllister is clearly running away with the scoring race for the league already in this very young season, Saskatoon already has seven players with goals this season. Just five games in that's exactly what you're going to want to see from up and down the roster if the Wild are going to have any hopes of possibly winning it all this year.

 

This is also a team that has shown a willingness to throw down the body for one another. Daring Do leads the team right now with 14 hits. Primarily playing on a line with McAllister and Jake Scheel, her physical presence has allowed the other two forwards to make plays and put up numbers for the Wild - although both of her linemates have shown they too have a willingness to get dirty when need be (with 7 and 4 hits in five games, respectively).

 

And then we have the unselfish play of the defenders, and here I'd say it's prudent that we look at the play of two in particular - Ay Ay Ron and Emil Martinov, both of whom are splitting time on the blue line with Aeschylus Jigglejawns CXX as well as spending some minutes with one another. Both Ay Ay Ron and Martinov have managed an impressive seven blocked shots each through five games, which has left Brienne O'Tarth with a much easier job between the pipes.

 

So what does this all mean? Will these numbers hold up? Probably not, we're just five games into the season so really anything could happen. But hey, things are looking pretty good, aren't they?