The Virden Oil Capitals are excited to get back to playing games.
The Manitoba Junior Hockey League club completed its sweep of the Waywayseecappo Wolverines, 4-0, in the first round of the playoffs on April 2. This week the team will get back to action by taking on the No. 1-seed Steinbach Pistons in the second round. The first two games will be Friday and Saturday in Steinbach with games three and four in Virden on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.
“It’s been a long break and the team and I are just excited to get back to playing games,” said Oil Caps forward Colin Cook. The veteran led Virden with three goals on the first round. “The farther you go in the playoffs, the more exciting it gets.”
After playing within their divisions in the first round, teams are re-seeded by regular season record – regardless of West or East – for the semifinals. The top-seeded Pistons beat Selkirk, 4-1, while No. 3 Winkler got by the Winnipeg Blues, 4-2. As the No. 5 overall seed, Virden had to wait for No. 2 Dauphin to beat Swan Valley, which had the ninth best record in the MJHL, 4-2, for its opponent to be decided. Cook said the Oil Caps have kept practices “high tempo and game-like as we can to stay in game shape.”
In the regular season, Virden posted a 30-20-4-0. Steinbach had a league-best record of 42-9-2-1. The Pistons won both meetings between the squads – 3-0 and 4-0. However, they last met in December. The Oil Caps had a strong finish to the season. They posted an 8-1 record in their last nine regular season games.
“Steinbach has a very good team,” Virden head coach Tyson Ramsey said. “It will be important to manage the puck and limit turnovers to their very good forward group. We will need to get pucks and traffic to the net as their goaltending has been very good.”
Cook, league MVP and First Team All-Star Braden Fischer, Evan Groeing, Tyler Thoendel, and defenceman Logan Rands all had a team-high four points in the first round against Waywayseecappo. MJHL Rookie of the Year and Rookie All-Star Team member Carson Buydens, Nathan Driver, and Dylan Halliday were tied with three points. Goalie Bailey Monteith played all four games of the series for Virden. He had a 2.90 goals against average.
As far as aspects that the Oil Capitals did well against the Wolverines and are looking to carry over into the next series, Ramsey said, “I thought we were very consistent with our compete and did a real good job of sticking to our game plan no matter what was going on in the game.”
For Steinbach, in the regular season, Jack Rogers and Quinton Pepper both tallied a team-high 30 goals. Pepper was named a First Team All-Star. Rogers paced the Pistons with 68 points in 54 games. Steinbach goaltender Will Hambley was a Second Team All-Star. He had a league-best 1.96 GAA in the regular season, while he is at 2.60 in the playoffs. In the postseason, Zach Power has powered the Pistons with nine points.
Check the website to stay up-to-date: www.oilcapshockey.com/round-2-2021-22-mjhl-playoffs
