In the end, the Saint John Sea Dogs came close, but they couldn’t quite surpass Acadie-Bathurst in the Maritimes Division playoffs.
The Sea Dogs’ 2021 season came to a close this weekend after they finished second of three teams in the nine-game round-robin tournament.
Now it’ll be the Titan that head to Charlottetown for the Maritime finals against the Islanders.
For Saint John, it marks the end of a long, memorable season marked by big moves, and occasionally overshadowed by COVID-19 cancellations.
Trevor Georgie, team president and general manager, says it’s always disappointing to see a season come to an end without raising the QMJHL’s President Cup trophy.
“It feels a bit strange to go from playing so much hockey in such a short period of time to now just not,” Georgie said.
Though the team’s 2021 championship dreams are now dashed, the front office has little time to relax with a busy offseason on deck beginning with the QMJHL Draft on June 25.
“There’s no offseason, that’s for sure,” said Georgie. “We’re focused on the Midget draft, the import draft, the trade window that opens in about a month’s time, and everything from scheduling next season to ice availability to all those things.”
First, the team will conduct its annual post-mortem, with exit interviews for staff and players before gathering input from scouts ahead of next month’s draft.
Heading into next year, Georgie and his staff will need to find replacements for the team’s three 20-year-old players, including starting goalie Zachary Emond, and forwards Vladislav Kotkov and Liam Léonard.
Though he says they’ll miss the graduating players, the G.M. is quick to note the team managed a 3-3 record in the round-robin tournament without a goal coming from their overagers.
“We hate to lose those players, but we have I think 10 of our top 11 scorers eligible to return to the league next season,” Georgie said. “You need two goalies to win so we’ll be looking at our options to add another goalie with Noah (Pateneude) for next season.”
“We’re looking to improve as a whole in every area, but at the same time pretty much all but our three 20 year-olds are returning.”
He mentions forward Ryan Francis specifically as the player with the highest points per game rate of any player eligible to return next fall.
The QMJHL is currently working on a 68-game schedule that resembles a normal season, with inter-provincial travel into Quebec, though it is contingent on Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
Georgie hopes with their many returning players that this year’s on-again-off-again season during the pandemic will provide a good experience for the team to build on.
Due to the team missing the playoffs in 2019, and the COVID cancellations ending the 2020 season prematurely, this was most of the team’s first opportunity to taste playoff action.
“This is the first time most of these players stood on the blueline for the national anthem to play for a playoff game,” Georgie said. “This is the first time where they experienced a turnover causing enhanced agony and pressure because it’s a playoff game. The first time we’ve gone to overtime in the playoffs.”
“You can learn a lot in disappointment, and I think for our players that really rings true.”
Despite the disappointment of bowing out of the playoffs early, Georgie added this will be a much-needed break for the players, some of whom haven’t been able to get home since they arrived for camp last summer.
“I don’t know that our players realize how tired they are. I think they’re probably running on adrenaline,” he said. “I think being young and maybe naive they’re able to get through the season with a positive attitude and optimism, but I certainly think the summer, this offseason, will give them time at home to reflect on ‘wow, you know, we not only got through it, but we had a pretty darn good year.'”
