The 2022-23 Fort Wayne Amateur Hockey Association season gets underway tonight and there are plenty of interesting storylines to take a look at before the puck drops tonight at 7:00. We’ll go team by team, giving them a preseason ranking, taking a quick look back at last season, and looking ahead to this season for each of them. To finish it off we’ll do a quick analysis of this week’s games and check back here every week as we recap each game and look ahead to the following week’s matchups. Now to the preview…
1. Carroll Chargers
Coming in as our preseason #1 are the Carroll Chargers. As was the story back in the 2020-21 COVID season, the Chargers seemed to be consistently inconsistent last season. They would win games against Homestead and then fall the next week to the Vipers just when it felt like maybe they had turned the corner and gotten it all together. On the other side of that coin, when they finally beat the Vipers in the fourth rotation of games, it came after getting smoked 6-1 by Homestead in the week prior. Penalty issues plagued the team in the early going but that felt more under control as the season went on, at least for the most part. It all culminated in an 8-7 league record and the third seed going into the Memorial Cup Playoffs. Crossover results came as was probably expected and Carroll was placed in 2A for the State Tournament. The postseason got off to a bad start with Homestead defeating them in the semifinals 2-1 but a few weeks later, I’m pretty confident there was not a single player on Carroll who cared about that.
Carroll went on to win the 2A State Championship over Riley, playing in a hostile environment up at the Ice Box in South Bend, Riley’s home rink. The game was a rematch from earlier in the tournament when the Wildcats knocked Carroll to the Elimination Bracket with a 2-1 overtime win. Carroll recovered from that loss with comfortable wins over Brebeuf and FWAHA foe Leo in order to make it to the State Finals. Senior forward Brody Burge scored the game-winning goal in overtime, capitalizing on a stellar stick lift at the Carroll blue line that led to the breakaway winner. During our Media Night live stream, Burge told us, “It felt amazing. I always dreamed of that as a little kid so it was just awesome to get it done”.
Coming off last year’s title the Chargers are poised to continue their upwards trajectory with a strong group of young players led by last year’s leading scorer Sophomore Dylan Braun who burst onto the FWAHA scene with 14 goals and 10 assists, winning the league scoring title by four points over Burge and PJ Isenbarger. Fellow Sophomore Finn Cupp is another one to watch for this season after putting up nine points as a Freshman, good enough to tie for third on the team. Similar to last year, the new crop of Freshmen are expected to contribute yet again this season, Adlee Scheerer and Colsen White in particular were pointed out as top six forwards during our Media Night interviews with Burge and Head Coach Eric Watson.
Another thing the Chargers have going for them this season as opposed to years past is consistency behind the bench with Watson returning for a second season. Watson is the first Carroll coach to serve as the main man for consecutive seasons since now-Komets Assistant Coach Olivier Legault led the team from 2015-2017. “Not having to deal with different systems, different power plays, and different practices in general. And I’ve noticed the kids, even my Freshmen from last year, right away know exactly what we want to do, and I think we were better our first practice than we were when we won the State Championship,” said Watson. That consistency in coaching can slide under the radar in terms of importance but Watson made a great point later in the interview when talking about the impact former Homestead Head Coach DJ Fisher had on that team during his time there, “(Fisher) told me about how much better teams got year to year just by having the same coach and just building off what you had before. Your freshmen class the next year is a little bit better helping your guys out.” Full agreement on that point as Homestead has been a perennial contender in the city for a few years now, having won three straight Memorial Cups.
Like a lot of teams, Carroll has already gotten their season underway with crossover games, winning all of them to get out to a 5-0 overall record with quality wins over Hillard (OH), Riley, and Lake Central Blue. Their rotation in league games this season is Homestead, Leo, and Fort Wayne.
2. Fort Wayne Vipers
Last year’s Roy Chin Cup Champions check in at #2 to start their first year without any holdovers from the Bishop Dwenger Saints/Fort Wayne Bruins/Summit City Panthers merger following the 2018-19 season. How that could play out in the team culture is an interesting dynamic, but even last year with only a few of those players remaining and a new coach, that storyline has probably already taken care of itself given that those few players had only played one year for their previous club.
It was another successful regular season for the Vipers and they finished atop the regular season standings, just one point ahead of Homestead which they claimed in a 6-3 Week 15 win over the Spartans to clinch the top seed for the Memorial Cup Playoffs. Senior forward Darcy Koch led the team in points in last year’s league scoring race, posting an eyepopping 13 goals, tied for second in the city, to go along with three assists. He returns alongside Junior forward Jackson Bertels to lead the offense. Perhaps more important however is what the team lost from last season’s team. Goaltender Aiden Orlikowski is now a full-time member of the Fort Wayne Spacemen after posting a .935 save percentage last season and a 1.64 GAA. Also gone is Captain Carter Knoblauch who was a big part of the Vipers’ defense since joining the team as a Sophomore, “Losing Carter is definitely a big piece, he ran the power play and the penalty kill so losing him it’s kind of hard to replace a player like him,” said Koch. Koch added that Junior Jack Backstrom, among others, is doing a good job filling that void so far. All that said, it’s reasonable to expect the team to take a step back this year but Sophomores Robert Rolf, John Goodine, and Nick Vanryn all had solid Freshmen seasons and if those three are able to build on that, and the team gets the necessary goaltending from Ben Marques, they could give Carroll a good run for their money at the top of the standings.
Three years in though and regular season success for the team is at least somewhat overshadowed by bowing out of the Memorial Cup Playoffs in the Semifinals every year thus far, something the team hopes to change this season, with Koch calling a Finals appearance the team’s number one goal. In saying that, Koch added that a big part of that is the team improving their consistency, “We’re a very good team for most of the time but when it comes down to the important times a lot of times we fall apart.” In the first two seasons of their existence, it was the Carroll Chargers who took the Vipers out, including a thrilling double overtime game in the 2021 edition of the city tournament. Last season it was the Leo Lions who took out the Vipers and that one likely stung the most given the Vipers’ number one seed and Leo finishing a distant fourth in the league standings.
Nonetheless, the Vipers won’t have to wait long to try and exact their revenge on the Lions as those two will face off tonight with a 9:00 puck drop. Payback is certainly on their mind and that should be a great game for storylines. The Vipers’ rotation this season is Leo, Homestead, Carroll
3. Homestead Spartans
Last year was another good one for Homestead fans. While they fell short of the Roy Chin Cup, they got the trophy every team in the league covets, the Memorial Cup. The Spartans now enter this season looking to win a fourth straight city title, a feat last achieved by Carroll right before Homestead’s reign at the top began. Homestead got a tough draw in the State Tournament, however, being placed into Class 4A with the best teams in the state. They proved they belonged there though with a victory over Carmel Gold before being sent home for the summer. That was last year though, our main focus is looking at this year, where in all likelihood the Spartans are going to have a tough start to the 2022-23 season, almost entirely due to the quality of players they lost to graduation over the summer.
Antoine Nicol, Brendan Asiala, Dallas Reichart, Matt Jennett, and PJ Isenbarger. All gone. Three of them now play for Indiana Tech’s Division Two team and truth be told, I’d argue that it could easily have been more than that. Those guys, to me, were Homestead’s five best skaters, and last year’s stats reflect that. Looking at just league games, Isenbarger finished tied for second in points, Reichart (a defenseman by the way) finished fourth in points and had five more assists than the next highest in that category, Jennett was tied for seventh in points, and Nicol finished ninth in points. The only omission from that list is Asiala but to anyone watching on a week-to-week basis, it’s clear how much he was valued.
New Head Coach Jake Kirkpatrick (more on that later) sounded like his primary concern in filling the gaps left by those players would start on the back end, where he has to adjust to life without the top half of last year’s D corps, “We’ve got to build three defensemen right, I’ve got to milk them. They’ve never played high school hockey before and losing especially someone like Nicol who quarterbacks a lot of the plays, or Asiala who never gets beat to the net, or you know (Reichart) who just, I mean he broke his back out there. I mean that kid was tough as nails. Losing those, I’ve got to fill those holes with somebody.” There are still some studs up front for the Spartans in Aiden Byler and Gavin Elkins. Those two should be expected to fill the Isenbarger and Jennett roles on offense as the younger forwards grow this season with more opportunity.
A key point in all of that is saying those are just the losses to graduation. Goaltender Aiden Vanderweele is gone too, making way for Alex Dougherty to take over the primary starting duties. Dougherty saw action in seven league games last year and did an admirable job filling in for Vanderweele. This year the job is his to start with but backup Connor Gould could see a fair number of starts, and Kirkpatrick is high on their young backup, “Gould, he’s not far behind. Just watch him in practice, that kid can play.” So mark goaltending as a work in progress as well, at least to start the season.
If that wasn’t enough change at the top, I’ve got one more to discuss. Long-time Head Coach DJ Fisher? Now coaching in Indianapolis. Kirkpatrick takes over after being an assistant alongside Fisher for the last couple of seasons. Under Fisher, the Spartans came a long way from their lows in the 2015-2017ish time frame and Kirkpatrick doesn’t see a need for drastic changes to something that has worked so well, “I don’t think we’re going to change a whole lot. We’re not the same level of team we were, right, so we’ve got to change a few things as far as forecheck, back check, stuff like that but I don’t think we’re Reinventing the wheel here right.” Kirkpatrick also isn’t a rookie Head Coach. As Head Coach of the now-disbanded Summit City Panthers, he took that team to a 1A State Championship (when that division used to be a little stronger from top to bottom) as well as a runner-up finish in the same class.
This team will offer a new challenge and it’s a group that should be looking for significant growth as the season goes along. Like Kirkpatrick talked about at Media Night, you can’t make up for the losses they took in just a month or two. Sort of like Leo last year, peaking at the right time should be a focus for this group of Spartans. That said, they’ll find out what they’re made of real quick with Carroll as their opening night matchup. Homestead’s rotation this year is Carroll, Fort Wayne, Leo.
4. Leo Lions
From last year’s Opening Night to Senior Day the Lions improved more than any other team in the league. Hand up, back in November I was convinced that Leo would be the first team to not win a league game since I’ve been around. I was glad to be proven wrong and one of the highlights of last season for me was when Leo finally broke through and beat Homestead in Week 11. A big part of that win, and their season-long turnaround was mid-season addition Dylan Davis who netted a hat trick in that game, including the empty net goal to seal that deal. Davis is back this season from the start and will be their top forward after Logan Robison graduated and took his talents up to Trine University in Angola, where he is joined by fellow graduates Landon Roth and Dakota Carter.
Leo’s upward momentum didn’t stop with that win over Homestead, the postseason is where they really shined, taking down the top-seeded Vipers in the Memorial Cup Semifinals in what was an upset to most, but not those in the Leo dressing room. “Well at that point in the season we didn’t feel it was an upset. We started to tighten the Gap we started to play more competitively we were peaking at the right time so we were real happy with our chances in that game. We thought it was a good matchup. It was a tight game close game, could have went either way but we didn’t feel it was a big upset,” said Head Coach Mike Robison. Leo lost the City Championship to Homestead and then it was on to the State Tournament where they came within one win of making it to the 2A State Finals in an all-Fort Wayne semifinal against eventual champion Carroll.
A similar trajectory this season is likely for Leo as they’ve got a very young group again this season that includes just three Seniors and three Juniors. Many of the new players coming into the team come from travel hockey teams and the most immediate need for their assistance will be on the blue line with five of last year’s top six forwards returning, headlined by David and Junior Sam Schwartz. The two new players we’ll be looking out for on defense are Riley Murphy and Tyson Finefrock who were singled out by Junior Goaltender Andrew Baumert at Media Night as guys who could help fill the void left there in past seasons by Parker Ray and Dakota Carter graduating in successive seasons.
The situation in goal is about as clear cut as it gets with Baumert the no doubt number one guy. He was Leo’s most valuable player last year and without him in goal some of those games earlier in the season could’ve gone way worse. One of the measures I used in my head last year to measure how good Baumert is was the fact that there weren’t any games (maybe one that I’m forgetting) that went to a running clock and if you look at shots on goal it might be hard to believe that, but it’s true. Another way to measure Baumert’s success is the ridiculousness of his Goals Against Average being 3.30 and his save percentage being .912. For comparison, Carteaux had a 2.78 GAA and a .888 save percentage. Not convinced on Baumert’s superiority? How about this. Baumert registered 479 saves last season, the next highest was Orlikowski with… 289. Baumert is without a doubt that guy in net and will yet again be the most important piece to any success Leo might have this season.
There are plenty of interesting storylines to follow early this season so Leo might be one that fades out of mind the first few weeks but when February comes around, this could be a team we look to for another playoff upset. Leo’s rotation this season is Fort Wayne, Carroll, Homestead.
Week One Picks
Carroll 4 Homestead 1
I’m not comfortable with the score on this one. Part of me wants to say it’s going to be closer and that Homestead is going to keep it within one, but another part of me says Carroll could win by four or five. I’ll compromise and take Carroll by three.
Leo 3 Vipers 2
Oddly enough I feel more confident with this upset than I do with the Carroll game. I know this goes against my rankings above but hey, it’s Opening Night, let’s have some fun. Baumert is a stud and Koch’s concern about their ability to play a full 45 has me at least slightly concerned that the lights could be too bright for the Vipers in Week One. And yes, I’m prepared to look very silly leaving the rink tonight.
