Tag Archives: Anthony Ganoung

Goaltending & Depth Players

Leave a comment

I think the one topic I’ve hit on more than any other since this blog started up is “goaltending.” It’s the easiest issue to talk about because a goaltender has no where to hide and doesn’t have a teammate that can cover up his mistakes. If a right winger has a bad game, it can sometimes be brushed under the rug because the center can adjust to make up for his error or a defenceman can cheat over to help out his d-partner when he’s in trouble. The goalie is the last line of defense. If the other team scores, people can clearly see that the goaltender didn’t make the save, whether it was his fault or not. So yes, it is a very easy topic to discuss especially when you are carrying 3 on your roster, each one looking for playing time.

It’s easy to see that the coach seems to like to play Anthony Ganoung to start a weekend and then for the most part has gone to Timothee Fengos. For most of the season, Silas Dromarsky has been a practice goalie and a back up for some games while waiting to have his chance to show what he can do. So here’s what we know. Ganoung is the only goalie to have started two games in a row. Drombarsky has the best stats. Fengos has the worst stats but it seems the coach has the confidence in him by playing him against the really tough teams. Timothee is still looking for his first regular season win but his team hasn’t scored a lot of goals for him. Case and point would be October 11th when he allowed just one goal through 60 minutes of regulation and 10 minutes of overtime but took the loss. His next game would be against the top team in the VIJHL which also happens to be the highest scoring team in the league and to take it even further, Comox was missing one of their best defenceman.

You could definitely make an argument for all three but in fairness, I think Anthony has proven himself to be the guy for now. He has been winning games, playing tough teams and has good stats. Silas has better stats and is 2-0 but one of those games were against Kerry Park and the other was against Oceanside who was struggling a bit at the time. Since that game, the Generals have reeled off 3 straight wins and are tied for first place in the North Division. I asked head coach/GM Curtis Toneff talked about the situation, “It’s pretty clear that at the present moment that Anthony has taken over the net a little bit. You know Silas Dromarsky is really knocking at the door with the opportunities he’s been given. It’s been difficult decisions as coaches because you want to give them all their touches and all that but for now we want to win every game that we can for the next little while because the standings are scarily tight right now. Anthony’s in net most likely Friday but Silas is coming off a shutout as well so that needs to be thought about too.” He hasn’t announced who the starter will be yet but I’d be shocked if it wasn’t Ganoung.

Anthony Ganoung: 4-3-1 2.50 .936
Timothee Fengos: 0-4-2 3.59 .904
Silas Dromarsky: 2-0-0 0.50 .981

Every team in the VIJHL is always looking to upgrade and the Glacier Kings are no different. Sometimes you can find a diamond in the rough that has been overlooked or just mismanaged but for the most part, top notch players aren’t usually available this time of year without paying a hefty price. The Yeti seem to have their defensive game shored up for the most part and their goaltending has been good so it’s quite obvious what the club is really in need of. It was no surprise when Toneff explained what he would like, “A goal scoring position. I don’t really care if it’s a winger or a center. I can see it is coming (goal scoring). It’s noticeably something that’s still somewhat missing. A guy that has a real gift for scoring. I think Leon (Mikhalchuk) has that, I think Westin Churchill has a little bit of it in him, (Ethan) Gobel as well. You look at some of these other teams and they 6 to 8 of these guys and you look at, like we’ve talked about, that’s why we have a bit of defensive identity. But you know what, it’s something that can be developed and we’re trying to develop it. There’s a reason we practice more than last year. It’s not like our guys don’t want to score, it’s just not a knack for a lot of our roster.” So I looked a little deeper into individual goal scoring for each team. Here are the number of players each team has with over 5 goals so far this season:

Westshore: 5
Peninsula: 5
Victoria: 4
Oceanside: 3
Nanaimo: 3
Saanich: 3
Campbell River: 3
Lake Cowichan: 2
Port Alberni: 2
Kerry Park: 1
Comox Valley: 1

Yes a goal scorer would be a wonderful early Christmas gift but they get snapped up pretty quickly. For now, the GKings will have to continue to manufacture goals, take advantage of power plays and get into the dirty areas to score greasy goals.

Darryl Skender

Big Win For The Glacier Kings

Leave a comment

The Comox Valley Glacier Kings had another strong performance on Saturday night as they downed the Saanich Predators 4-2 in VIJHL action. The GKings have now won 3 of their last 4 games and have points in 4 of their last 5 contests. The home team improved to 6-7-2-1 and find themselves tied for 4th place in the North Division with the Port Alberni Bombers. The Predators loss drops their record to 4-11-0-0 and remain ranked 4th in the South.

Saanich got off to a quick start when Josh Yolkowski took a long stretch pass off the boards in behind the Glacier Kings defence and deked goaltender Anthony Ganoung just 1:23 into the game. It was 1-0 early.

Comox Valley would tie it up about 8 minutes later on the power play when Westin Churchill came flying down the left side and took a shot that was stopped by George Jantz but the huge rebound came into the slot and was one-timed by Landen May into the back of the net.

The opening period would finish tied up at a goal apiece despite the Yeti having a very strong last 15 minutes. They outshot the Preds 20-8.

The second period was more of the same with Comox having an edge in the play. George Jantz was outstanding in between the pipes in this period as well. The Glacier Kings did take their first lead of the game with Westin Churchill being involved again. He won an offensive zone faceoff right to Leon Mikhalchuk at the top of the circle. The big forward took a quick shot that was stopped by Jantz but Churchill followed up on the rebound and beat the 17 year old goaltender.

The lead would be stretched to 3-1 just 1:02 later when two Predator defencemen collided which caused a 2-man breakaway. Zaya Morro slid the puck over to Kingston Gowans who one-timed a shot to the glove side of Jantz and beat him cleanly.

That was it for the scoring in the second period although Comox had so many chances to build on that lead. Shots were 19-15 in favor of the home team.

Saanich played a very good third period. About midway through that final frame, Elijah Kim centered the puck to Kaydin Halladay. His shot went off Ganoung’s pad right to Josh Yolkowski who was standing at the side of the net and had an easy tap in. Suddenly it was 3-2.

That would be as close as they would get however. Despite some good pressure, Anthony Ganoung stood tall. Isaac Dunsire would ice the game late with a 160 foot shot into an empty net. Shots were 17 aside in the third.

All in all it was a fun game to watch. Both goaltenders played well and were deserving of getting a star. That’s the second meeting between these clubs with each side winning once. Comox Valley has one more game this month. It is on Halloween when they travel to Lake Cowichan. The Predators are done for October finishing the month at 1-7. Their next action is Sunday in Victoria.

Other Observations:

  • The rain storm caused the Predators to get to the rink late but they did have time to do the pre-game warm up. In fact they were the first team on the ice.
  • Glacier Kings hit a goal post and a crossbar in the first period.
  • Josh Yolkowski looks like a keeper. He’s played just 2 VIJHL games and has 3G, 1A. He’s so new that he doesn’t even have a name bar on his jersey yet.
  • I would have liked to see Anthony Ganoung get an assist on the last goal as he touched it right before Isaac Dunsire shot it into the empty net.
  • Comox Valley’s PK continues to be dominant They have now killed off 26 of 28 shorthanded situations in October and are the best in the league.
  • Kaydin Halladay extended his point streak to 6 games (3G, 7A). He has a point in every game but one this season.
  • A big thanks to Dave Dueck for playing a Jimmy Buffett song for me and a Taylor Swift song for my wife. You’re a “beauty” Dave.
  • It took 53 games but Elliot Lee scored his first VIJHL regular season goal.
  • The Yeti’s PP hasn’t been great this year but they have scored with the man advantage in 3 straight.
  • Leon Mikhalchuk had his goal streak snapped at 4 games but he did extend his points streak to 5.
  • PLEASE stop cutting out the national anthem during the broadcast to play hard rock music! It’s so DISRESPECTFUL! We see all the players standing on the blue line facing and respecting the flag and then we hear the broadcast cut out and “Airbourne” gets cranked up.
  • Comox Valley is 3-1-0-1 in their last 5 games.

Darryl Skender

Bombers – Glacier Kings Preview

Leave a comment

The Comox Valley Glacier Kings are looking to break their 3 game losing streak tonight when they play host to the Port Alberni Bombers. Comox had yesterday off after losing in Victoria the night before. Meanwhile Port Alberni lost 6-0 last night to Peninsula in a game where the Panthers outshot them 22-2 in the third period. The standings are crazy in the North Division this year. The Glacier Kings are in 6th place but a win can put them into a tie for 3rd place and only 1 point behind the 2nd place team.

Getting back to tonight’s game, Comox will try to take advantage of home ice, something they haven’t really done much of this year. They have won just 1 of 4 games at the Sports Centre this year. The Bombers haven’t been much better on the road with a 2-4-1 record. After tonight, Port Alberni will have played 8 of their 13 games away from the Multiplex.

One thing that the GKings have struggled on lately is scoring, especially on the power play.  After having a streak of 5 straight game with at least 1 PP goal, they haven’t scored one in their past 3. I asked head coach/GM Curtis Toneff about the struggles, “Ya, a couple guys efforts, execution isn’t what it needs to be. Sometimes I wear a lot of hats so I’m focusing on it a little more this week. I told the guys about 3 weeks ago that their 5 on 5 play will play a factor in their power play situations. And if they’re on the power play already, their work ethic on the power play would decide if they stay on the power play or not. A couple guys have found themselves on the power play and a couple guys found themselves in the stands. That’s the reality of it in junior hockey.” They are currently 0/13 with the man advantage in October.

As much as the power play is struggling, it’s just the opposite with their penalty kill. In the last 4 games, they’ve held the opponents off the score sheet in 11 of their last 12 shorthanded situations. Toneff talked about his club’s PK, “I think that guys that have been around the team and around my style of effort. A lot of our veterans kill. We don’t beat it up a ton to be honest. We have our values and the guys stick to them and have done a great job in executing that so far.” The Glacier Kings are killing penalties at an 85% clip. The Yeti have actually done a pretty good job staying out of the box as there are only 3 teams with less total penalties minutes this season.

The goaltending duo of Timothee Fengos and Anthony Ganoung has been pretty good so far. One knock on Fengos so far is that he has made some terrific saves and has played well but it seems he lets one goal a game in that he should have maybe stopped. I asked Curtis about that,” Fengos is 17 which reminds me of Luca Vanzo last year, he stole the net down the stretch. I bet you in September and October that there were a few goals that he would like back. He ended up taking the net in the playoffs. I think as long as you work through the problems, as long as you’re making big saves, I’d rather give up those goals unfortunately now than down the stretch. I think Timmy is a very good goalie, he’s very sound east to west, moves well and I think has a lot of potential. I’d rather him just work through whatever that issue is, maybe a confidence thing, don’t get all up tight about it. I think the rest of it is there. He knows that he has to clean that 1 goal up every night. He’ll get another crack at it soon enough. In practice with some of the things he’s done, we have a good thing going there as a whole.” Fengos has put up a 0-3-1 record with a 3.77 GAA and a .909 save percentage so far this year.

As for Anthony Ganoung, he has played a couple more games than Fengos. Ganoung has also been very good and is the only goaltender with back to back starts for Comox this season. I asked the coach if Ganoung is considered the go-to guy yet, “Well, they’re so different (Ganoung and Fengos). I would say at this present moment, absolutely, you gotta go with the guy that’s won the games. He’s got the hot hand. With Anthony, it’s a different look in there. Timothee is more of a focused type guy, a little bit quieter in his gameday like a lot of goalies. Then Anthony brings that kind of swagger to our team it seems. It’s not like you get the same thing in there which is nice. As a coach, you have to read who the best fit is. And on top of that, Silas (Dromarsky) has gotten better every day too so he’ll get opportunities shortly to build his stat sheet. It’s positive that I got three guys I like right now. Hopefully our guys play hard in front of them.” After Thursday’s loss, Ganoung now sports a 2-3-1 record and a 2.83 GAA with a .922 save percentage.

The Glacier Kings enter tonight at 3-6-2 while Port Alberni sports a 5-6-1 record. A win by the home team would pull them within one point of the second place Bombers and still have a game in hand on them. The two squads are challenged offensively averaging less than 3 goals per game each. Both sides only have one player among the top 20 scorers in the VIJHL. Bomber forward Kash Nicklin is tied for 16th with 12 points in 10 games. Zaya Morrow for the GKings is tied for 18th with 11 points in 11 games.

Curtis Toneff has announced that Timothee Fengos will be the starter in net for Comox. Puck drop is 6:30 pm at the CVSC. Enjoy the game everyone.

Darryl Skender