Defenceman Nick Borody scored a pair of goals and Tyson Soloski added a single in the Cochrane Generals’ 5-3 Heritage Junior Hockey League (HJHL) loss to the visiting Medicine Hat Cubs Jan. 26 at Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre.
Kris Keller added two assists for the Generals, who dropped a 4-3 decision the night before to the visiting Red Deer Vipers.
“Both those teams on the weekend are pretty good hockey clubs,” observed Generals head coach Ken Soloski. “We made a couple of mistakes in our own end, we gave up some 2-on-1s late in the game (against Medicine Hat) and they capitalized on them. Those are mistakes you can’t make.”
The Generals still hold down the fifth and final playoff spot in the HJHL Southern Division with five home games remaining in the regular season.
Playing through January with a short bench has been a challenge for the injury-depleted squad.
“When you’ve got a short bench, it’s going to weigh on you a bit,” Soloski said.
With veteran forwards Reed Boothby and Tanner House recovering from concussions and Danny Bunnah, Ian McRae and defenceman Craig Packard nursing leg injuries, there’s been a considerable gap to patch.
McRae and Packard are back, but the Generals have been leaning heavily on young affiliate players from the Bow Valley Timberwolves Midget AA program.
“The Hume kid (Talus Hume) was exceptional. He’s a good playmaker. He’s smart with the puck. We were playing him with two of our top guys. He actually set up one of the goals in the Hat game. (Nick) Noseworthy was playing on the back end. He kept it simple. He did what he had to do and he got a lot of ice time.”
Soloski expects his regulars back in the lineup in time to round the team into shape for the postseason.
“House and Boothby will be practising this week, so they should be in the lineup on the weekend. We get our lineup back, it gives us five games to get everybody back on the same page and back into game shape. Then we should be peaking at the right time in the playoffs.”
It will be a tough climb from the bottom qualifying spot, if that’s where the Generals end the regular season. But that doesn’t concern Soloski.
“As far as we’re concerned, if you’re in the playoffs, you’ve got a chance,” he said.
“You can look as far as the Los Angeles Kings last year. They got in at the eighth spot and went all the way. For us to expect anything less would be wrong.”
