Jonny Tychonick

On the Topic Of Transfers Returning

/ scottywazz / Leave a comment
Photo via University of Nebraska-Omaha

On Friday night after the first period of the North Dakota/Omaha match-up, Jonny Tychonick was the last of the Omaha Mavericks to leave the ice. At the Ralph Engelstad Arena, the visitor’s locker room is across from their bench, going through a tunnel next to what usually is the student section at UND. With restrictions in place, there wasn’t that many students in that area, but the ones who were there started to give Tychonick the riot act.

Tychonick had transfer this past off-season from North Dakota to his new spot in Omaha. Citing limited playing time and the want to develop more, he enter the transfer portal and got UND’s blessing to not have to sit out a season in order to play this season. For a guy who was a scratch for a good portion his two seasons with the Fighting Hawks, it’s easy to see why he would want to move onto another school where he’ll get playing time and start to establish himself as a viable prospect. With a solid incoming class of defensemen to boot, Tychonick saw the writing on the wall and then went the transfer route.

Since going to Omaha, it does seem like Tychonick is making waves with his new squad. The Calgary native has three goals and eight points in 17 games, only a goal and three points away from matching his career high, which he notched last year in 24 games with UND.

Back to the matter at hand, though, the vilification of Tychonick is pretty unfair to him when you look at the grand scheme of things. While I understand North Dakota fans want to think that once you’re in UND, you only leave when you graduate or go to the NHL early. They don’t take into account the fact some of these players may have other reasons for wanting to leave– like in Tychonick’s case, as well as Chris Wilkie’s case, another player who left UND for another school (Colorado College) to play a bigger role than he was getting. Wilkie also got earfuls from the North Dakota faithful when he came back to play after his departure.

It’s understandable why North Dakota students and fans would be upset with two players not only wanting to leave UND, but go to schools within the same conference. But taking a step back, you can’t blame them for wanting more for themselves and their development. Neither player really deserved the backlash they had gotten, but in a school pride situation– there’s no rationale good enough to sway people away from the “traitorous acts” that these two players committed by leaving UND. Despite the fact that in the long-term, it was a better decision for those players to leave a bad situation for a better one. In a world where people are starting to look more at how mental health affects people, these two players getting out of a bad situation for themselves and going to a better one seems like it should be applauded rather than belittled.

Sometimes, however, it’s about looking out for yourself. In his first season at Colorado College, Wilkie matched his career total at UND (6g, 13a, 19) in 42 less games. Wilkie’s senior season saw him lead the team in goals (24) and points (31) before the season was ultimately cancelled. Though it looks like Tychonick won’t match his stats in year one with his new team, he’s well on his way to have a better two seasons in Omaha than he did at UND because he was able to get playing time and get to what he felt like his true potential is.

The shocking thing is that it doesn’t happen more in some cases. Plenty of college teams have depth for days and with only being able to dress 19 skaters at a time, it’s a hard decision to figure out which players are going to sit for whatever reason. It’s almost a good problem to have for schools like North Dakota that they have players who are healthy scratches in their line-up, but then give some help to another program that would kill to have a player like that.

Moral of this story is that you shouldn’t hate a player for looking out for their own interests in mind. Yes, it sucks to lose out of talent. Yes, you don’t want a unit to break up because they gel well. Yes, you want to have all the top prospect available, even if they won’t play all the time. But I’ll never understand the feeling of betrayal some people might get just because they actually wanted to play rather than sit in the stands on gameday. But at the end of the day, if these players want to make it to the next level, they need to play more. If they aren’t getting the playing time and they can get the same schooling for their major at another school where they can get more playing time– the choice for them is clear.

Ottawa Senators Mirroring Their ’92-93 Pace

/ scottywazz / Leave a comment

When the Ottawa Senators changed their jersey and logo to their (kind of) original one with the motto, “Back to Our Roots,” I don’t think they envisioned going THAT far back.

The 1992-93 Ottawa Senators won their first game 5-3 and then dropped their next nine games, including one in overtime. The 2020-21 Ottawa Senators won their first game 5-3 and have dropped their last seven, including one in overtime. The goal differential in the first nine games for the ’92-93 Sens was minus-22. For the ’20-21 Sens, minus-22.

I’m not saying…I’m just saying.

Coming into the season, the bar was quite low for the Ottawa Senators. Obviously in the midst of a rebuild, the team probably wasn’t going to see much of the top of the standings. However, the bar probably wasn’t as low as being better than their first year in the league, but the trends have them going in that direction. Even acquiring Matt Murray, Evgenii Dadonov, and Derek Stepan didn’t tip the needle of this team not being as horrendous as we’re seeing right now.

There’s always the thought of this being part of whatever “process” that the Senators are trying to build. There’s a good pipeline of prospects starting from Thomas Chabot, Brady Tkachuk, and Tim Stuetzle (can’t find the umlaut on this keyboard), who are already on the team, to plenty of drafted talent on the University of North Dakota roster– like Shane Pinto, Jacob Bernard-Docker, Jake Sanderson, and Tyler Kleven, as well as former North Dakota defenseman Jonny Tychonick, who has found some solid footing since transferring to Nebraska-Omaha.

Yet, you have to wonder– will they be able to turn it around on their own as a rag-tag bunch of prospects taking the world by storm. It’s almost setting themselves up to be that way, as Ottawa seems to be quite the undesirable spot for free agents and trade candidates, alike. While it’s one thing to grow the team from the studs up and find success in lower leagues, it’s a whole other thing to do it on the pro level. It’s not impossible, just look at what the Chicago Blackhawks and Washington Capitals have done with their prospects; but they also had some helping veterans come along the way to guide those young teams to success. Can Ottawa get that same luck??

Pierre Dorian is doing what he can with what he’s given. Eugene Melnyk has been known to put his hand in the pot a little too much when it comes to decision making, but if you’re writing the checks; my guess is that they can get away with that– even if it can be detrimental to the team in the long-run.

However, I don’t know if it’s a good look for a team trying to get back on the upswing when they’re trending to be as bad as they were as an expansion team. As broadcasters like to remind fans, this team was one goal away from the 2017 Stanley Cup Final…and within 18 months, totally dismantled that team to make it almost recognizable.

Will the fans put up with much more before going completely apathetic?? Personally, my money is that they’re already at that apathetic stage and they’ll sit there catatonic on their TVs watching this team struggle and then have to fend off any rumors– fabricated or otherwise– about their longevity in the area, as Melnyk plays cat-and-mouse with moving the team closer to where people live in the downtown area…but those seems to be dashed.

At the end of the day, you have to do the cliche thing and take it game-by-game. Also, hope that your don’t do as bad as the first ever team. For reference, the ’92-93 Sens didn’t get their second win until game 23. Something for this team to shoot for…and maybe even get before that mark.

UND HOCKEY: Fighting Hawks Stomps Miami 7-1

/ scottywazz / Leave a comment

GRAND FORKS, ND— In trying to keep their home winning streak alive, the University of North Dakota Fighting Hawks made sure they left no doubt against the Miami University Red Hawks, scoring three times in 2:02 and twice again in 33 seconds to upend Miami 7-1 on Friday night.

The game started quick for UND, as they had four solid scoring chances against Ryan Larkin, but couldn’t get through the senior goalie for Miami. Thanks to some penalty issues from the Red Hawks, Jacob Bernard-Docker was able to open the scoring, as he rocketed home a wrister with UND up two-men, to break a 16 power play try drought for the Fighting Hawks. At the tail-end of that same advantage, Jasper Weatherby tipped home a Jordan Kawaguchi slap-pass to make it 2-0. Not to be overlooked, Collin Adams ripped home a shot from the face-off dot to make it 3-0 and giving Kawaguchi his third assist of the night, all in the first period. 

It took less than three minutes for North Dakota to strike in the second, as a stretch pass by Matt Kiersted to Dixon Bowen made it 4-0 after Bowen snapped a shot high glove over Larkin. The Hawks had been experimenting with the stretch pass in the first, coming close to connecting at times, but never getting the great chance generated like in the Bowen goal. Jonny Tychonick got into the act with a bomb from the top of the circle that was laid out perfectly by Harrison Blaisdell to make it 5-0, with Tychonick adding his second goal 33 seconds later pass new Miami goalie Grant Valentine to make it 6-0. 

“I want to play my game— playing with energy, playing with pace, moving the puck, and moving my feet,” Tychonick said after the game. “The big thing for me is jumping up in the play. I’m really focusing on my game right now and not getting ahead of myself and doing the little things right.” 

It only took 2:20 of the third for UND to make it 7-0, as Westin Michaud joined the party a perfectly placed wrister over the glove of Valentine, a goal that was assisted by Tychonick and Blaisdell. Miami answered back with a Noah Jordan redirect that went through the five-hole of Adam Scheel to make it 7-1, which would eventually be the final of the game. 

THEY SAID IT

“That’s a big thing. Miami has a lot of pride in that dressing room, so we know they were going to have a little bit of a push. We kind of had a lull in the d-zone there in the second period in the last ten minutes. That’s stuff we got to clean up and we really wanna focus on the details because that’ll go into tomorrow’s game. Friday night is over and done with. Now it’s time to move onto Saturday, watch some video and work on some things that need to improve on.”–Tychonick on not getting complacent after a big win. 

“Very important to score on the 5-on-3, I thought that was a key time of the game to get that first one and it seemed like they got a little more confidence on the second power play. You can take a breath a little bit and know that, yeah, we can score on the power play and keep working on it.”–Head Coach Brad Berry on getting the power play to break an 0-for-16 slump.

“We’re a really mobile corp. Unbelievable feet, unbelievable puck poise and puck management. We’re up in the play creating offense. Hockey these days can’t just be generated through the forwards, it comes from the D as well. Good D leads to good offense.” –Tychonick on the offense the defense is providing for UND. 

“They keep doing the right things time and time again. Part of that is that they’re good checkers and good defenders, but they’re also good with the puck. When you have the puck, that means the other team doesn’t. And that’s a big part of having match-ups, too. Now, tomorrow’s going to be another challenge. I thought they (Miami) played well in the second half and we got to make sure we answer the bell tomorrow.”– Berry on the Mark Senden/Cole Smith/Gavin Hain line. 

“We’re getting better opportunities on the ice, we’re getting inside to the middle and that’s a big thing for us and it’s paying off. I think the more we can from floating them from the outside and getting them to the middle of the ice, the better it’ll work for us.” Matt Kiersted on the offensive game on Friday night.