Kalamazoo learning from the past

KALAMAZOO, Mich. – Seventy-two wins, zero losses: a perfect season by East Coast Hockey League standards. While fans and players alike dream of that mythical day, no hockey team permits perfection. In fact, it can be argued that any team without adversity faces a harrowing handicap when push comes to shove in the post-season. Some slumps, however, hit harder and harbor more concern than others — especially for the 2010-11 Kalamazoo Wings. Last season, the K-Wings earned their bragging rights, starting the season with six straight wins and a 16-7-2 record before finally hitting a serious snag into the new year. An eight-game homestand resulted in just three wins and four-straight losses culminating on New Years Eve. “We thought we would be able to do some damage in December,” Head Coach Nick Bootland said. “But it wasn’t anything that we were hoping for.” A five-game winning streak between January 1 and January 9 boosted the confidence of the flailing squad, eventually spurring them to the North Division crown — a feat made even more impressive considering the season was Kalamazoo’s first in the ECHL. The K-Wings repeated their four game-mini slump only once more that year, never losing more than three in a row at any other time. The emotional and mental strains of losing rarely haunted the high-flying team which reached its peak during a seven-game winning streak in late February. After that, the team never looked back. This season, Kalamazoo won their first three games with visions of last year pirouetting in their heads. After dropping six of the next eight, it quickly became clear that some of the division-winning dance steps had been forgotten.“There are a lot of new faces and it seems like we may be having a little trouble just jelling as a team and working as a team,” forward Trent Daavettila said. “We had that early swagger last year with that nice huge streak, we knew what the team could do, and this team really hasn’t defined itself in that area yet.” Kalamazoo’s worst stretch came during a six-game fall between November 19 and December 3. The streak dropped Kalamazoo far below the .500 mark, a rock-bottom low the team and fans rarely experienced. A thick tension split through a locker room usually filled with laughter, banter, and hungry-eyes awaiting the next challenger. A nightly fight to make the playoffs painfully replaced last season’s battle for first place. Whether the cause or by effect, statistical circumstances began to remove any thought of bad luck for even the most casual observer. Ten games into the season, Kalamazoo ranked seventh on the power-play and sixteenth on the penalty kill. A month later, the surging power-play climbed to fourth, but the penalty kill continued to dip, consistently flirting with a last place rank. By the time Christmas break rolled around, the K-Wings owned the dubious record of being the easiest team to score on. Their 102 goals-against lead the league and during an 11-game streak between November 19 and December 15, the team gave up no less than three goals per game. For the first half of the season, Kalamazoo routinely proved the old adage wrong: the best defense is not a good offense. During interviews, the team bandied about the word ‘defense’ like theywere chasing a mythical on-ice beast. Sluggishly slow starts and frequently frigid finishes became the name of the game even as scoring streaks and personal highs filled the locker room. “Everyone seemed to make that jump toward the offense but if everybody paid that extra little bit in our own zone, the offense is going to be there just as much,” rookie forward Justin Taylor said. Team leader Kory Karlander carried a ten-game point streak through the beginning of the season, eventually handing over the baton to Daavetilla and his team-high 12-game point streak. Daavettila’s streak still sits in a three-way tie for first in the league this season. “It wasn’t very enjoyable when we were fighting so much as a team,” Daavettila said. “It was there in the back of your mind a little bit, but most of it’s just the team wants to get a winning streak going more than any player wants to get anything at all.” Changes were made in the locker room in hopes of affecting the culture and preparation. Player-only team meetings became almost routine, in an effort to tackle both the physical and mental ailments of a slump prolonged over months. “I come in early I do a little bit of workout before so I’m a little bit tired before I go out on the ice. That way when we’re supposed to think, I’m thinking when I’m tired,” Ftorek said. “The major breakdowns happen at the end of a shift, at the end of a period, when you’re exhausted and you can’t wait to take a breath.” Ftorek’s lead-by-example effort brought a similar rise out of Daavettila. “I try and be mentally strong and come out consistently in practice and work hard and hopefully that attitude helps spread throughout the locker room,” he said. While the players worked to tackle the physical demands of the slump, Coach Bootland knew a high level of responsibility weighed on his shoulders as well. “Whether you’re a visual guy who needs to see it on video, whether you’re a white board guy who needs to see it with a dry erase marker, or whether you need to practice it, we try to hit all those elements on everything that we’re talking about,” Bootland said. “Whatever way you learn, that’s the way we teach you.” Kalamazoo, never a team to throw in the towel, knows that they are not alone in their struggles. A quick look at any team’s season schedule shows that Kalamazoo’s slump, while unique in its longevity, affects even the most dominate teams. For most, slumps rise and fall like waves along a beach. Lessons are learned, changes are implemented, and the natural order of things returns. The Florida Everblades boast a league-leading scorer (Francis Lemieux), a number one goal-scorer (Alexandre Imbeault), and four winning streaks of three games or more. If it weren’t for a particularly difficult January, the Everblades would easily be running away with the South Division. Between January 1 and January 15, the Everblades lost five-straight games, including a three-game sweep by the Cincinnati Cyclones. “We had a lot of call-ups and injuries and the roles on the team kind of changed. We needed guys to step it up and it took a couple of games for guys to get used to that — taking on that added responsibility,” Everblades Head Coach Greg Poss said. “A lot of the times when you don’t have success or when you lose games, you actually learn more about the team, about the individuals on the team, than when you win. It’s no fun to go through it but you have to go through it and in the end when you get through, it makes the team stronger.” Perhaps the worst streak of the year belongs to the Gwinnett Gladiators, losers of 11-straight games in December. If not for a short two-game winning streak before New Years, a month of imperfection would have been completed. Gwinnett Head Coach Jeff Pyle reluctantly called the stretch a slump. “A slump is when you have all your guys and you’re not playing very well. We were playing hard we just didn’t have the horses. We shouldn’t have been 0-11, but in the end, I can live with that; as long as you’re growing.” Kalamazoo hopes to fondly look back upon their rough stretches with the same kind of relieved resentment such slumps inflicted on their opponents. If recent trends continue, the K-Wings might not have long to wait. For the first time since the start of the season, Kalamazoo managed to put together a three-game winning streak between January 23 and 29. The rare streak was part of a seven-win month — Kalamazoo’s best of the season. Kalamazoo’s ten wins since Christmas break aren’t necessarily the start of another division-winning drive, but under the surface, Kalamazoo shows signs of a surge. The regularly high-flying power-play enjoyed continued dominance, converting on 23 out of 98 chances – a 23.5 percent rate (second in the league). The penalty-kill met with equal success, killing 72 out of opponent’s 83 chances — an improved 86.7 percent rate. Also, Kalamazoo finally cleared out their early-game cobwebs, out-scoring their opponents in the first period 16-10 since January 16. In the same span, the K-Wings averaged just over 2.5 goals against per game — almost an entire goal better than their yearly average. The personal success is still there too. Taylor, tied for 11th in the rookie scoring race, leads all first-year players with a 23.6 shooting percentage despite missing the first 14 games of the season. Forward Kory Karlander’s 48 points in 43 games ranks seventh in the league in overall scoring and Andrew Fournier sits seventh in goals (24). Most importantly, the team feels a change in the air — a feeling that the mental hurdles ended and only an all-out run to the finish line remains. “We’re playoff-bound. I don’t expect anything less,” Bootland said. “We know we’re a playoff team and we’re capable of that and we expect that as an organization, and a coach, and all those guys in that room as well. Our goal is to get in and wherever we are we know we’re battle-tested.” Battle-tested. You can’t sum it all up better than that. Contact the writer at Ryan.Loren@prohockeynews.com Contact the photographer at Larry.Burdick@prohockeynews.com