From the Stands by Paul Osborne
From the Stands – The Guelph Tribune
by Paul Osborne
It was like Guelph Storm General Manager Dave Barr was expecting the question that was asked after rookie goaltender Cody St. Jacques had looked so sharp in winning his OHL debut last Friday night, 4-2 over Windsor.
“So coach” asked the reporter, “how are you going to get enough playing time for both young goalies?”
“I can only dream to have that sort of problem” he said with a smile.
And he’s right. Thomas McCollum, if he isn’t the most surprising player in the OHL this season, he’s in the top three. He’s been so impressive that Barr was willing to trade away veteran netminder Jason Guy and replace him with the 16-year-old St. Jacques. So now he has two youngins’ in between the pipes (McCollum turns 17 December 7th) taking us back to the days of two strong goaltenders trying to share one net. Chris Madden and Craig Anderson or Adam Dennis and Danny Taylor come to mind.
St. Jacques acknowledged as much when he said despite having a lifelong goal of playing in the OHL, he hesitated about leaving the Tier II Junior A Kingston Voyageurs when asked by Barr.
“I wondered if it wouldn’t be better for my development to play an entire year in Tier II, rather than jump right into the OHL this year” said the native of the northern community of Iroquois Falls.
Even Barr had advised St. Jacques at training camp that the best thing to do was to spend the year in Tier II?but things change.
When Barr had to use Guy to get Luke Pither out of Kingston, he realized it was more of a deal for the future than of the present. The fact that St. Jacques had been simply spectacular with the Voyageurs helped convince him that St. Jacques may be more ready than he originally anticipated out of training camp.
Still, Barr is putting a whole lot of faith in his two fuzzy faced netminders.
So far McCollum has been brilliant, leading the league handily in both goals against average (2.01) and save percentage (.934). St. Jacques has only played in one game but looked sharp in that effort and was both thrilled and relieved afterwards to have picked up a win his OHL debut.
At this point Barr is likely to let McCollum keep running with the puck as the number one guy and work St. Jacques into games when he can. Guelph has a very tough weekend coming up playing at Mississauga and then a home-and-home with London. The IceDogs are second in the Eastern Conference while London is first overall in the West. I’m guessing that McCollum will get two of the three games but fans will see firsthand this weekend just how cool and composed these kids really are.
So far they have answered the bell and they have given no indication they won’t continue along this track. It’s like they don’t realize they’re not supposed to adapt to the league this easily. If they can win two of three this weekend, then Barr would certainly be grinning from ear to ear and I suppose that is the reason he answered the original question the way he did. He can only “dream” to have the problem of having not enough time to keep them both happy.
From the Land of Oz?.Knights goaltender Steve Mason who played just twelve games last season, has started every one of London’s fourteen games this year?Guelph Storm owner Elliott Kerr has had very few emails from Storm fans regarding ideas to improve things around the rink. He has encouraged fans to drop him an email at [email protected] but so far things have been very quiet. I’m guessing the team’s 9-5-1-1 record has something to do with that….Ryan Parent, who has now missed a couple of weeks with a groin pull is hoping to be back this weekend, but there is no guarantee that will happen. His absence has meant a ton of playing time for 16-year-old rookies Joe Underwood and Patrick Moran in all different situations?.The Storm has the best goals against average in the league and four players in the top 15 for plus/minus – Tyler Melancon (tied 2nd, +12), Ryan Pottruff (tied 3rd, +11), Tim Priamo and Michael Caruso are at +9.
