Burrell hockey team ready to ‘make noise’ in Penguins Cup playoffs

By: Antonio Rossetti
Monday, February 13, 2023 | 11:41 AM

Burrell’s hockey team features a collection of veteran and freshman players from the rival Burrell, Highlands and New-Ken Arnold school districts who share a common goal: to qualify for the PIHL Penguins Cup playoffs.

The Bucs did just that, accumulating a record of 8-5-0-1 with 18 points and a fourth-place spot in the Division II Gold standings heading into this week’s action.

A group effort has helped carry the Bucs, who have seven players with more than 10 points: Caden Lindo-Canfield, Tyler Danko, Mike Morazcyk, Luke Mink, John Lukac, Landon Johnson and Julian Kemp.

Lindo-Canfield, the Bucs’ leading scorer, has 17 goals and nine assists, good for 10th in scoring among Division II players.

“(Mink) has been a pretty big part of this season. and he’s been helping me out a lot with my skills,” Lindo-Canfield said. “He’s a young, great player. We’ve been pretty much bonding. And my other linemate, Ty Danko from Valley, he’s a very good forward who has a very good shot. An unbelievable shot, and he knows how to dish the puck, too.”

Mink, a sophomore, has 17 points in 10 games. Danko, junior, has nine goals and nine assists.

The Bucs’ defense also has bolstered the effort, allowing 55 goals, which is fifth best in Division II.

Junior Chantz Watkins was part of that defense core before being moved to forward where he has netted a goal and three assists.

Watkins said the defense continues to thrive despite being young. Ryan Scheftic and Riley Wislie are the only two seniors on defense, and Watkins believes the production from the young talent is a good sign for not just this year, but the future.

“It’s kind of been tough because we’ve had some struggles in the past two years, and this year has kind of been a little bit better for us,” Watkins said. “We’re still young. I think we lose five seniors. You have a lot of young talent, which is good.”

Burrell has relied on fast starts this season, outscoring opponents 28-12 in the first period.

“If we get scored on first we get, we’re not down on ourselves, but you lose that confidence,” Watkins said. “It’s like ‘Oh my God the game just started,’ but when you’re on the other side of that and your team is scoring in not even a minute and five minutes in, you got a really good boost of motivation. Man, that helps a lot.”

Lindo-Canfield added that the early scoring gives the team momentum.

“It gives us an advantage scoring that first goal,” Lindo-Canfield said. “We like to get the boys going in warm-ups a little bit to get the legs moving, and so it’s always good coming out quick and getting a quick-strike goal.”

Lindo-Canfield said a key component to their game is dump-and-chase hockey. This helps against talented and skilled teams like Bishop Canevin and Deer Lakes. He mentioned how important it is to beat teams like them to the puck.

“We see it a lot, too,” Lindo-Canfield said. “When you don’t have numbers, you just get the puck deep and go to work and it works usually. You just get the puck deep and pressure.”

The Buccaneers have been working on backchecking. Lindo-Canfield said the team back-checked well early on, especially against teams like Neshannock, which it beat 6-5 early in the season. He noticed the team has had some struggles with backchecking but knows it can improve.

“We’ve been trying to get on the back check in the middle and shut down their guys and pretty much just take away any passing options,” Lindo-Canfield said. “We’ve been working on it a lot in practice.”

Watkins agreed and said structure in the defensive zone coverage also can help, especially in the second period when the Bucs have come out flat at times.

“The big thing we need to work on is our ‘D’ zone coverage,” Watkins said. “We just need to be more structure with that in our zone entries going into the offensive zone. No turnovers at any blue line. Getting the puck, playing down low, everything like that.”

Lindo-Canfield and Watkins said that they love how the team has improved throughout the season and remains competitive in games that they lose. Burrell recently took undefeated Bishop Canevin to overtime.

“I think that’s gonna really help for us and I’ve seen our team come around a lot in the second half of the season,” Watkins said. “Our record might not show it, but there are games where we’ve lost against the good teams we’ve definitely played well.”

Watkins says the team has to improve in certain areas, but he is also proud he gets to play with coaches and teammates who care and want to make those improvements together. The team’s chemistry has led to Burrell’s playoff berth.

“They’re always getting up and making sure we’re ready for each game,” Watkins said of coaches Luke Kopchak and Johnathan Scheuler. “They’re always talking every game. Every game means something and who you’re playing. Every game is going to matter.”

He said Lindo-Canfield, Wislie and Scheftic are excellent leaders.

“They’re always making sure that we’re motivated and ready to go,” Watkins said. “I think a lot of a lot of it, too, is just we bond a lot, our team. Most of us go to school together, and the ones that don’t, we’re all still pretty close to him because we’ve known him through other teams.”

Despite the team having multiple players from Valley and Highlands, it doesn’t affect the team chemistry.

“Aidan Petroff, he goes to Highlands and me and Caden and a few other guys have both played with him since we were 5 years old,” Watkins said. “Things like that really play a big role. Playing with the guys you’ve always been friends with makes it a lot more fun.”

The Buccaneers are clicking heading into the playoffs, but they want to improve in certain areas. The two main things they are looking to sharpen is their physicality along the boards and their second period play.

“We’ve been preparing a lot recently,” Lindo-Canfield said. “A lot with our forecheck recently in practices and a little bit of small area games like battling areas.”

Lindo-Canfield said the team has momentum after a string of solid team play and is optimistic heading into the Penguins Cup playoffs.

“Last year, towards the end we kind of fell off a little bit,” Lindo-Canfield said. “We had a couple of rough losses, a lot of things didn’t go our way and this year our top goal was to make the playoffs. We really wanted to make the playoffs, and we did and couldn’t be more excited to make noise in it.”

Tags: Burrell