LEWISTON – What a difference a year makes.
Last year, for the second consecutive year, the Acadie-Bathurst Titan finished out of the league’s playoffs. With just three od the league’s 16 teams missing the playoffs, the Titan did it twice in a row. But, as the end of the season drew near, head coach Mario Durocher, the former coach of the Maineiacs, was starting to smile.
“Last year, we didn’t make a move at Christmas because we thought we had the right players in place already,” said Durocher, who took over nine games into the season last year when the Titan were 0-7-0-2. “I think as the season went on, we played hard. We had 14 17-year-olds last year, and now we will see the good side of that. We will be up there with them at 18 this year and again at 19 next year.”
“I have eight defensemen right now that could play in this league. I have two really good lines, too, and a lot more guys with experience.”
Already leading
Sebastien Piche played like a veteran Saturday night against the Acadie-Bathurst Titan. Though only 17-years-old, the defenseman, in a way, he already is.
“Sebastien can really skate well,” said Maineiacs assistant coach Ed Harding. “He has to work on his decision-making a little bit, when to skate and a couple of times (Saturday) we saw, when to shoot.
Piche was part of a five-man blue line corps that had combined for less than a full season of experience at defense. Marc-Andre Daneau, normally a solid defensive checking forward, played defense with Piche, along with rookies Shane Peterson, Kevin Marshall and Mathieu Ricard.
Back from the pros
Several Maineiacs will be returning from NHL rookie camps. According to their respective teams’ Web sites, Chad Denny (Atlanta), Michal Korenko (Boston), Brandon Roach (Minnesota), Marc-Andre Cliche (Rangers), Mathieu Aubin (Montreal) and Olivier Legault (Florida) were not offered invitations to the main training camp for the NHL clubs.
One player, Jonathan Paiement (Rangers), has been invited.
Alexandre Picard (Columbus) and Alex Bourret (Atlanta) have also been invited to their team’s training camp.
Cuts coming
The Maineiacs will not announce cuts until late today or Tuesday. Last week, general manager and head coach Clem Jodoin said that four players (Jakub Bundil, Manuel Brunet, Daniel Basque and Shane Peterson) were fighting for two remaining spots.
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