Sabres rattling for WHSHL division title

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This article was published 03/01/2023 (721 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Going into the holiday break, the Sanford Collegiate Sabres varsity boys hockey team was nipping at the heels of Stonewall Collegiate for first place in the Winnipeg Free Press Division of the Winnipeg High School Hockey League.

“I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by how it’s gone. I knew we’d be a team with good defence and good goaltending, but we lost a few guys last year. We’ve got a lot of new guys and they’ve developed very quickly,” second-year head coach Brad Day said.

So far, the team has leaned on its defensive prowess for their success, Day said.

“That’s because of the strength of the group as a unit. We’re strong skill-wise, strong physically, and we’re supported by forwards who are all good defensive players,” he said.

The Sabres, with a nine wins in regulation time and another in overtime for 29 points in 14 outings so far, could benefit from an improvement in the attacking zone, but things are trending in the right direction, Day added.

“We’ve struggled a little bit with our scoring, but we have gotten better over the last month, as well,” he said. “We’ve had the discussion recently. We continue to focus on playing strong defence, but we’re going to have to improve our offensive play. We have to make the most of chances, because we get a lot of shots per game, just not pucks past the goaltender.”

Even the team’s leading scorer, Kadyn Robertson, viewed himself as a defender first.

“I’m more of a defensive player, generally,” the 17-year-old centre said. “I’m usually the first guy back for forwards and I look for open guys breaking out of our end.”

Robertson, who had 13 goals and six assists in 14 games at press time, agreed with the coach about the path the team needed to take moving forward and to contend for the division title.

“If we keep up our defensive play and we’re more focused in our power play and we put more focus into crashing the net and putting pucks in, then we got a good shot,” Robertson said.

Centre Baylen Dilk, who has contributed five goals and four assists in 14 games, said all-in-all he’s happy with the way things have gone this season.

“I’m really impressed by our team this year. I thought we really improved from September to December. We’re working well together,” he said.

Part of that success can be chalked up to a good atmosphere in the dressing room, the 17-year-old Grade 12 student said.

“It’s a really positive team this year. All the guys are really close and communicate well with each other on and off the ice,” he said. “And I see myself as an offensive player and playmaker who has a positive attitude in the dressing room.”

Bilk said the goal moving forward is to just keep doing what they’ve been doing — which is getting better day-after-day.

“We just want to end our regular season off near the top of the league, then keep the train rolling in the playoffs,” he said.

The team restarts the “train” after the holiday break on Jan. 6 against the West Kildonan Collegiate Wolverines.