Spokane Chiefs season outlook: Team likely moving forward with goaltenders Dawson Weatherill, Donovan Buskey
This is the third of an seven-part online series wrapping up the Spokane Chiefs’ 2016-17 season, as well as looking forward to next year. Today: The goaltenders.
Wednesday: The 20-year-old situation.
Friday: Young leadership emerges.
While it’s hard to blame all of the Chiefs struggles this past season on the goaltenders, consistency in between the pipes will serve the team well in the future.
Dawson Weatherill, 17, was brought into platoon with 20-year-old Jayden Sittler, who the Chiefs traded for in the offseason from Lethbridge. The results were less than stellar.
Sittler struggled and failed to take control of the No. 1 spot. He finished 33rd in the WHL among goaltenders with 10 or more starts with a 3.56 goals allowed averaged and was 39th in save percentage at .885.
“With Jayden, a 20-year-old, would we have liked to have a little bit of better play out of him? Yeah, certainly,” Spokane general manager Scott Carter said. “But we can say that about a lot of our players.”
Weatherill came on strong at the end of the season, but the overall returns weren’t much better posting a 3.58 goals allowed average (32nd) and a.885 save percentage (37th).
Donovan Buskey, 16, was added as an affiliate player to end the season after Weatherill was out with an upper-body injury and allowed 4.25 goals per game.
Sittler has exhausted his WHL eligibility, but Carter trusts what he saw from Weatherill this season and expects improvement from the Red Deer, Alberta native next season, with Buskey as his backup.
“We like his upside. We like his potential … we love his athletic ability,” Carter said. “The goal would be to at least start the season with our No. 1 guy and see if that holds true. I think if you brought in another older guy you’re just contradicting yourself from what you did the year before.”
The key to developing Weatherill and Buskey will be reinforcing the entire defense in front. That, according to Carter, will make a big difference.
“The goalie seems to get the blame,” Carter said. “but the forward didn’t pick up his check and the defenseman didn’t do his job and the puck goes in there with lights flashing and people cheering, and all the focus is on the goaltender.
“There are usually two or three mistakes that happen, there are usually a few mistakes that happen before the goaltender comes into play. For us to get better goals against average, we need to improve team play.”
Coming Sunday: Breaking down the forwards.