Grinders long-time GM Scott Davies held court with the Ottawa media on Friday, as bag day hit the Grinders dressing room a bit earlier than hoped.
"I'm very proud of our team - we made a great run during these playoffs. We were able to take out two great teams in the Knights and Hitmen" Davies said, "But at the end of the day, we ran out of gas versus a juggernaut of a team in the Hamilton Jaguars. My congratulations go out to Mike and his impressive team. They have a great shot at winning a Cup and we wish them luck."
The regular season was admittedly a roller coaster for the Grinders. Despite outstanding play from team leaders Bo Horvat, Jakub Voracek and Kris Letang, the team was mired in inconsistency throughout the season. "We just weren't getting any production from our bottom 6 forwards, our penalty killing was awful and our goaltending just wasn't good enough" Davies said. The Grinders GM made several in-season trades to try to bolster his roster, including bringing in stud centre Evgeni Malkin, big Zdeno Chara, Josh Manson, Zack Smith & Artem Anisimov...but it wasn't quite enough for the team to achieve its ultimate goal of a 3rd Cup for this proud franchise.
The Grinders will have a different looking roster next season, with pending star UFA's Malkin & Letang about to hit the market. While Davies hopes to bring one or both players back, the price would be steep. Key restricted free agents Horvat and Thomas Chabot will certainly be re-signed and be a big part of the Grinders core going forward. Despite giving up some future assets this season, Davies is relatively happy with the prospect base he's built up in recent years. "I think we're in pretty good shape moving forward" Davies said. "Our farm team the Nepean Senators are in the Conference Finals, and much of our success is because of the growth of young players like Victor Olofsson, Logan Brown, Taro Hirose and Ben Jones" Davies proudly stated. Of course, much of the teams success also falls to team MVP goaltender Jonas Gustavsson, who was a monster all season.
Entering into the offseason (where the Grinders currently have 10 picks in the 2020 UHL Draft, including its 1st and 2nd rounders), here are the Grinders top 15 prospects:
Forwards: Kristian Vesalainen, Logan Brown, Rasmus Kupari, Egor Afanasyev, Michal Teply, Nikita Alexandrov, Logan Hutsko, John Leonard, Patrick Moynihan
Defensemen: Thomas Harley, Ian Mitchell, Calen Addison, Scott Perunovich, Declan Chisholm, Sean Durzi