3 storylines to watch for at North Stars camp

Looking at last year’s depth chart from the finals against Flin Flon, only one player remains from their top two lines.

Top-line centre Coby Downs is off to Norwich University, top-line winger Ben Allen was traded to Penticton at his request last week, and the entire “20-line” of Jared Blaquiere, Connor Logan, and Reed Delainey have also all graduated.

Don’t forget leading playoff goal scorer Keaton Holinaty is also now headed to Oshawa, Ont., to play university hockey with the Ridgebacks, which represents another massive scoring loss.

This means six of the team’s top seven scorers from the regular season last year are now gone.

The only one to return is 20-year-old fan favourite Layne Young, who scored a career-high 27 goals and finished fifth in league scoring last season.

The question on many people’s minds (or at least should be) is: Who will Young play with?

The leading candidate heading into camp may be MacGregor Sinclair, who had a solid rookie campaign and ended up centering the team’s third line for the entire playoffs. He is a logical candidate to move up to a top-six role, but saying he will automatically play with Young is far from a sure thing.

Another possibility is newly acquried centreman Josh Sielsky, who comes over from the Neepawa Natives. Sielsky, a Maidstone native, had eight goals and seven assists in 32 games with Neepawa last season.

Tre Doyon, who was Sinclair’s teammate with the Llodyminster Bobcats AAA midget team two seasons ago, is also another candidate, even though his numbers don’t jump out at you (four points in 47 games last season for the Bobcats AJHL team).

The point is, with so many losses, the top-line centre spot is very much up for grabs, which should make camp that much more competitive.

2. Who will captain the team this year?

Defensive stalwart and hometown kid Kendall Fransoo spent the last two seasons wearing the ‘C’ and now it’s not very clear who will carry that honour.

Assistant captains Reed Delainey, Logan Nachtegaele, and Connor Sych have all moved on too.

There are six total players returning for their third full season: goaltender Taryn Kotchorek, Troy Gerein, Conor Jensen, Levi Kleiboer, Cody Spagrud, Layne Young.

Those are the most likely candidates to lead this team off the ice this season, and Sinclair and Lamb have also shown to be solid quiet leaders.

An incoming veteran like Keith Anderson could also find himself wearing a letter this season.

How this team gels in the coming weeks will likely determine who is named captain.

3. Who will back up Kotchorek?

There’s no question North Battleford native Taryn Kotchorek is the team’s starting goaltender this season, in what will be his final year of junior.

Las year, he was in a 1A, 1B situation with Joel Grzybowski

Right now, Grzybowski is at Saskatoon Blades camp, and could very well make the team as their backup (if he doesn’t, Grzybowski is the obvious second netminder for the North Stars, unless his WHL rights are traded).

If he does make the Blades, who will back up Kotchorek?

Sixteen-year-old Cale Elder was acquired from Kindersley this summer, and could be in the mix, but given his late birthday, he would be even younger than Grzybowski when he played last year. That doesn’t rule him out, but he would really have to impress if he were to stick.

With Grzybowski likely to stick it out until the very end of Blades camp, that means the North Stars goalie situation at training camp (other than Kotchorek) could get very competitive, with a potential spot on the team up for grabs.

The team could also carry three goaltenders into the beginning of the regular season, if they feel the need, as last year they had three goalies until the end of September.

Fitness testing to kick off training camp begins at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 30.

The players will be split into four teams, each getting three scrimmages in on Thursday and Friday before the first cuts are made. Then there will be one practice and final scrimmage with the remaining players on Saturday at 1 p.m., before the team’s first pre-season game on Sunday night in Bonnyville.

nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @NathanKanter11

by Nathan Kanter

3 storylines to watch for at North Stars camp

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