Poised for playoffs in Flint
Flint Firebirds are at the door waiting to punch their ticket into the Ontario Hockey League playoffs that begin in about three weeks.
It has been a solid 2016-2017 season for the Firebirds who had a lowly record of 20-42-6 while missing the Western Conference playoffs in 2015-2016 after relocating to Flint from Plymouth where they were known as the Whalers.
With seven games to go in the ’16-17 regular season, Flint has 69 points from a record of 32-24-5.
The chief architect of the Flint rebuild has been first-year Firebirds general manager George Burnett.
Burnett, who will turn 55 years of age on March 25, has brought his winning ways of 20 prior OHL seasons to Flint.
Focusing solely as the GM in Flint — he has 636 career regular-season wins as a coach, which is the sixth-most in OHL history — Burnett has moved unhappy players and parlayed excess draft picks to bring in major contributors to the Firebirds.
Forward Kole Sherwood, obtained from the London Knights for multiple draft picks, is second on the Firebirds in scoring with 32 goals, 44 assists, 76 points.
Defenseman Jalen Smereck, acquired from the Oshawa Generals for multiple draft picks, has 8 goals, 35 assists, 43 points from his blueline spot, good for fifth in team scoring.
Forward Maurizio Colella, brought in from the North Bay Battalion at the January trade deadline for a future fifth-round draft pick, has 11 goals, 12 assists, 23 points in 23 games since joining the Firebirds.
Meanwhile, both goalies are the products of player exchanges made by Burnett this season with Connor Hicks arriving from the Hamilton Bulldogs and Garrett Forrest picked up from North Bay. While neither has been in the standout category, Hicks has 18 wins and Forrest — an OHL rookie who was an all-star goalie with the Powassan Voodoos of the Northern Ontario Jr. Hockey League last season — has 13.
To be sure, Burnett is not a one-man show, nor does he pretend to be.
An unassuming sort of guy who is easy to talk to while being careful what he says, Burnett is quick to give credit to his management assistants and scouts and has praise aplenty for the job done by first-year head coach Ryan Oulahen, who apprenticed under esteemed North Bay bench boss Stan Butler for five seasons.
Oulahen, who turns 32 on March 26, has proven to be a wise choice to take over as the head master in Flint and is considered by many to be a rising star in the OHL coaching ranks.
Assistant coaches Eric Wellwood and Scott MacDonald have also been key contributors to the flip-flop in Flint.
Averaging in the neighbourhood of 3,000 fans per game, the OHL seems to be catching on in Flint, whose previous high-level hockey history included the minor-pro Flint Generals and the tier 2 junior Michigan Warriors. For that, credit goes to a business-marketing unit that is overseen by Firebirds team president Costa Papista.
At any rate, with the playoffs nearby and Flint preparing for its first OHL dance, the seventh-seeded Firebirds face a daunting task regardless of who their first-round opponent will be in the superior Western Conference. As Flint is in seventh place on the Western side, it would be seeded fourth if in the Eastern Conference.
Regardless, it has been a tidy turnaround from last season to this for the Firebirds.
Holdover players from the first season in Flint have also had an impact.
Ryan Moore leads the Firebirds in scoring with 38 goals, 45 assists, 83 points and fellow forward Nick Caamano has 29-27-56 numbers. And a pair of overage defensemen have been top-notch — Mathieu Henderson is fourth on the Firebirds in scoring with 10 goals, 39 assists, 49 points and Alex Peters is eighth with 8-23-31 totals.
A number of rookies have been eased into the lineup and forward Ty Dellandrea, the Firebirds first pick from the 2016 OHL draft, has been pretty good with 12 goals, 8 assists, 20 points.
And defenseman Dennis Busby, a second-round pick from the same 2016 draft, has seen a lot of minutes in becoming a dependable rookie defender for Oulahen and the coaching staff. As a bonus, Busby has 2 goals, 14 assists, 16 points as a prized, right-handed shooting blueliner.
If there is a bit of an uncertainty related to the Firebirds it is with the net tandem of the aforementioned Hicks and Forrest. While both have turned in some big-time performances between the pipes, inconsistency has been somewhat of an issue.
All in all though, the Firebirds are in like Flint as they prep and plan ahead for the playoff Ides of March.
Firebirds action photo by Rena Laverty.