Saginaw Spirit bandwagon
There has been major media attention directed towards the Saginaw Spirit over the past few weeks. But this is an Ontario Hockey League team that we have been touting as one on the rise for several months now.
Maturing as a team faster than many expected, Saginaw has gone from a Western Conference playoff dark horse for the 2017-2018 campaign to an overachieving squad that is games above the .500 mark as the OHL inches closer to the midway mark of the season.
The Spirit posted a record of 9-2-1 during November, making it the most successful month in the history of the Saginaw franchise that dates back to 2002 when it relocated to mid Michigan from North Bay after the erstwhile Centennials closed up shop.
At any rate, under the careful, almost doting leadership of its youthful general manager, the Spirit has been a work in progress since Dave Drinkill took command in Saginaw just prior to the onset of the 2015-2016 season.
Not content to be a mediocre team that simply qualified for the post season — Saginaw has never made it past the second round of the OHL playoffs since its 2002 inception — the 35-year old Drinkill has been tearing down and rebuilding since he took the Spirit GM job in 2015.
The presence of good, young talent on the Saginaw roster is strikingly noticeable to the extent that the majority of the better players have 1999 or 2000 birth year dates.
Leading the way for Saginaw has been 1999 birth year forward Cole Coskey and a collection of 2000 birth skaters from Drinkill’s inaugural 2016 draft as Spirit GM that includes forwards Blade Jenkins, Damien Giroux and Max Grondin and defenseman Caleb Everett.
All have varying ranks as prospects for the 2018 National Hockey League draft including Coskey, who was bypassed in his first year of eligibility for selection in 2017.
To be sure, over the course of this past summer, well before the 2017-2018 season began, one could vision the Drinkill blue print for onward and upward success taking shape in the form of a rising Spirit.
And while legitimate contention for the Western Conference title was pegged for the 2018-2019 season, the Spirit at this point is ahead of schedule as it has become a very difficult opponent to play against as it moves past the one-third stage of the 2017-2018 campaign.
While it helps to have so much blossoming young talent, a few older players have been the difference between winning and losing, namely a trio of overagers at each position — goalie Evan Cormier, defenseman Marcus Crawford and forward Mason Kohn, not to mention 1998 birth year defender Keaton Middleton.
Bringing it all together in his first season as bench boss in Saginaw has been Troy Smith. Smith, who has previous OHL coaching experience with the Kitchener Rangers and Hamilton Bulldogs, is another example of Drinkill doing his homework and bringing in the right fit for the Spirit, be it a player or in this case, a head coach.
Smith is excited to be where he is, at the helm of the Saginaw bench.
“We have a group we’d like to have the opportunity to grow with and build up the Saginaw organization into a marquee franchise,” Smith relayed to Postmedia. “Our kids have worked extremely hard and the ownership is fantastic and they deserve to have success here.”
Or as the aforementioned GM Drinkill told me during one of our many conversations even before this season began — “I didn’t take this job just to make the playoffs every year. I took this job to try to help the Saginaw Spirit win a championship.”
There is now reason for optimism in Saginaw where players and coaches and general managers have come and gone over the past 15 years with little overall team success.
But not only is the future bright, the future is also the present.
PHOTO: Saginaw Spirit general manager Dave Drinkill.