"It's a completely different animal for sure," said General Manager, Blake Wendt. "We really tried to play with the sim in the Summer League, and see what we were dealing with. We had a lot of success with what we were doing (winning the Summer League Championship over the Fort Erie Falcons), but it was such and abbreviated season, and some teams weren't playing their 1's full time, it was hard to really gauge what that success really meant."
But sitting back and running on auto pilot with that lineup was not and has not so far been a part of the plan.
"Outside of clearing up who our top-six forwards were, there's not really much we have stuck to during the regular season so far," said Wendt. "We've tinkered with things, and we've given the coaches the green light to go with what they think has worked and will work. But for sure we're a little more locked in with our personnel group at forward. The acquisition of Blake Comeau really filled in a hole on the Sissons line that we were growing more worried about as we went on. Soderberg has fit in really nicely off Colton's left wing, and we had hoped that the success Bjugstad had shown in Dartmouth would translate here. It hadn't (and Bjugstad has since been sent to the minors), and we just really coveted another defensive forward to add to that line. Comeau fit what we were looking for."
The blueline is still a little more fluid in finding what works consistently.
"Our defense is something that I don't know if we completely lock down pairings this season at all," said Wendt. "We have a good mix of puck movers and shutdown guys. I had hoped for more points from the back end. But really, at this point, and with with as many 1-goal wins as we have this season so far, I'll take the defense that keeps the puck out of our goal more than the defense that puts it in the other goal."
One of the biggest surprises with the new sim, is seeing which teams have adapted and which ones are struggling.
"I know we're where we wanted to be and expected to be at this point in the season," said Wendt. "But yes, it is somewhat shocking how things are falling into place in the Canosa Conference. I won't get into the Corfield, because we've only just started to play some inter-conference games. But yeah, I'd be lying if I thought the Ice Cats, Puffin and Isotopes would currently be on the outside looking in, and the Aces, Ronin and Miners would be in playoff contention. There's obviously still a lot of season left to go, but this is not how I saw this playing out. It's fun though. There's no sleeping on any team in this league. It's very competitive every night, and that's what I really like."
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