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[jRuutu 2,298]

 

 

It´s been couple days now since the season 63 officially ended for Quebec Meute, I must say that it still feels bad, we had high hopes for this year, the main goal was to make our way back to finals and take that one more step, but it was not meant to be I guess.

 

Despite the regular season and the struggles we had here and there, I´d say the year has been a fairly positive one, made the playoffs and the players in the roster has managed to keep on improving, some have even started playing on totally new position, so when we go forward from here, we have one more season of experience under our belts and players who now have the ability to play multiple positions and adapt to new situations quickly, that makes the job for coaching staff a lot more easier and also keeps our enemies guessing.

 

One of the players who has started playing on a new position is Beau Louth, he made the jump from wing to center. The idea for Louth´s move to center came after he beat the team´s other centers in faceoff competition. Komarov and I were practicing our faceoffs moves when Beau skated by and said: Can I try tweisoffs with you guys?

 

We laughed, but coaches gave him a chance, they laid the following rules: Komarov and I take 30 faceoffs, who wins the most of them goes against Beau. I tried my best, but Komarov and his strong shoveling wrists still turned out to be too much for me, Komarov won 19 out of 30 and went against Beau next.

 

 

 

Same rules as before, the winner is the one who takes most out of 30 home, I go against the winner. To the surprise of all, Louth won 25 out of 30. Some might now say it was because Komarov was tired, but I can tell you right now - Louth was dominating. As a player who likes challenges and challengers, I was really up for the next round, I wanted to see how good this guy really is.

 

Pretty good, once again Louth was the stronger one, won 23 out of 30, I was defeated just as badly as Komarov was a moment ago, Louth beat both of us and the coaches from there on had him play as center in practice. Around a month or two later he made his official debut in VHL as a center and has played on the middle ever since.

 

I thought it was pretty cool how he comes from nowhere and is able to beat centers who have taken thousands and thousands of faceoffs more than him. The way he celebrated left bit of a sour taste into my mouth though, could have let the ´I have never practiced faceoffs, you guys are shait´ - comments out, but he earned the right to brag - at least little bit.

 

That was just one example of what happened in Quebec during the season, an interesting example still, when you look what our lines could be in the future. Having player like Louth in the middle now opens spot in first line wing for someone, I guess ideally the winger would be more of a two-way player, but with some offensive upside, we will see what the lineup looks like in day one next season, but now it´s time to rest and enjoy the off-season!