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***Jexter*** · 05-13-2024, 10:40 AM

With the S76 Playoffs in both the SMJHL and SHL still going on, many SHL teams are not only fighting for glory, but also for continued success, especially in the postseason. The Winnipeg Aurora is no different, with their small prospect pool making waves. Two of the three are still in the playoffs, with the odd man out having lost in six in the first round. In this article, we will be examining the Junior Careers of the three prospects, using both the regular season statistics and the postseason ones at the time of writing. We will also look at some potential new players for the Aurora to pick up as the need to replace an aging and regressing roster looms ever larger, despite continued playoff and regular season success. The Aurora is a team that prides itself as a mainstay in terms of competitiveness and being at the very least a dark horse (black bear) for a deep playoff run. However, as alluded to, the majority of Winnipeg’s roster is from S62, meaning new players have to start coming in sooner rather than later as the wear and tear of age and battling in the SHL take tolls on the bodies of the players. Winnipeg, contrary to their age, is on another deep playoff run with another conference finals appearance. While the current leadership is assuredly focused on the present with the sweep of New Orleans, the close series win over Texas and are preparing to face the San Francisco Pride, a titan of the regular season, we are going to do a little dive into the prospect pool of Winnipeg.

Two of the three Aurora prospects will be coming up to the SHL in S77 (they have no choice, it is an age out thing), meaning their prospects will be down to one. That being said, Juan Tymer and Langston Hardison-Laurent will find immediate places in the Winnipeg lineup as Winger Lord Farquaads and Defender Grogu Mandosson are retiring at the end of the season. Over his regular seasons in the SHL (which was a short affair), Farquaads had 186 goals, 339 assists for 525 points, even while playing the first three seasons as a defender. His best season was in S73 with 94 points. Farquaads was an integral part of Winnipeg’s dominating run to a Challenge Cup victory in S72 and a key part of their lineup since S68. Over 152 postseason games, Farquaads has been able to score 40 goals and have 68 assists with 11 of those 108 points coming shorthanded. Oddly enough, many would say that Farquaads is playing his best playoff hockey in his career this season with a PDO of 104.3 and 11 points in 10 games, his best points pace since the S73 playoff campaign. With Farquaads departure, it seems clear that Langston Hardison-Laurent will be called on to add depth on the wing for this team as players like Spack Jarrow or Duncan Mackenzie are called up to the top line for the Aurora. Meanwhile, Mandosson was a more recent acquisition by the Aurora and spent four seasons with Winnipeg, with 224 points in those regular seasons. In the 55 postseason games with the Aurora, Grogu has gotten 14 goals, 37 assists for 51 points. While this was Mandosson’s first bout in the playoffs as a defender, he still played well with 5 points in 10 games with 7 takeaways. As a third pairing player, we expect this to be where Juan Tymer will be slotted in for the time being. (Bear in mind that these totals are temporary as the Winnipeg Aurora will have more games with these two in the lineup.)

Now for a deeper look at the Prospects themselves:

S74 Juan Tymer, Defender, Quebec City Citadelles

With high expectations this postseason, D Juan Tymer, who is in the final playoffs of his SMJHL career, is currently the highest scoring defender in the playoffs on the super team that is Quebec City. Tymer had a solid rookie campaign on an (at the time) very young Quebec roster before being taken early in the first round of the draft by the Winnipeg Aurora. During his four regular seasons with the Owls, Tymer recorded 158 points, averaged 21:39 of ice time, played on both the power play and penalty kill, had 302 blocked shots, 326 hits and 198 takeaways. Tymer has taken the extra steps in his development in his time in Quebec, becoming active in the locker room, eager to learn about tactics and the minutia of running a team as well as being made alternate captain of QCC in S76. In terms of playoff performance, Tymer has 10 goals and 10 assists for 20 points in 32 postseason games, very great numbers for a defender. With 43 blocks, 23 takeaways and a 4-postseason average time on ice of 22:12 (averaging above 23 minutes a game the past two seasons). Expecting these numbers to rise as the Owls are looking for a Four Star Cup to send off their horde of Lobsters (S74 draftees), Juan Tymer already has points better than most forwards that come through the SMJHL playoffs. Tymer looks to be a future staple of the Winnipeg blue line and a catalyst for postseason success.

S74 Langston Haridson-Laurent, Left Winger, Yukon Malamutes

When it comes to the regular season, LW Langston Hardison-Laurent is one of the best to come out of Yukon, with stats better than soon to be retired Lord Farquaads who also came from Yukon to Winnipeg. Langston had an inauspicious start to his junior career with 40 points in his rookie year before being a late first round draft pick by Winnipeg. LHL was named alternate captain of the Malamutes in S74, right before he went on a spree with the best regular season that a Malamute had ever had with 55 goals and being named league MVP. He had a regression in performance in S75, but still lead the team in points, this time focusing on assists. After being made team captain, Langston then had a terrible senior season in the juniors, finishing third on the team in points, but retook the team goal title. Langston finished his junior career with 129 goals, 137 assists for 266 points, being the second all-time in Yukon Franchise goals, eighth in assists and third in points. LHL had 902 shots, 134 penalty minutes, a plus 3, 14 game winning goals, 60 blocked shots, and 527 hits. What is concerning for LHL is that ever since the clutch goal in his first playoffs way back in S73, he has been borderline invisible in the postseason, going from being the top scorer to just above average in points production. Across 36 post season appearances, LHL only has 15 goals, 12 assists for 27 points with 11 of those goals coming from S74, when he was the MVP, meaning he only had 4 goals in 25 postseason games, discounting S74. LHL is also a minus one in plus minus, with 129 shots, 64 hits, and only 1 game winning goal (series clincher in S73). LHL had a poor playoff performance this season and the Yukon Malamutes were defeated by the Newfoundland Berserkers in six games. For the Aurora, Langston may benefit from being able to have less pressure as his rise to stardom in Yukon was insanely quick. While he may struggle to replicate the two-way style of play of the retiring Lord Farquaads, hopefully his scoring skills recover and improve for him to make a positive impact on the Aurora.

Whalers

S76 NoNo Jo, Center, Vancouver Whalers Whalers

The youngest and soon to be only (hypothetically) Winnipeg Prospect is NoNo Jo on the Vancouver Whalers who managed to upset the Regina Elk in the first round. NoNo Jo had 1 goal and 5 assists in the last seven game series against the Elk and this was the only upset in the first round of the playoffs and the first one in the 16-team playoff era. As a reward, they will now have to play the juggernaut that is Quebec City and fellow Winnipeg prospect Juan Tymer. I am sure Winnipeg fans are going to be tuning into this matchup and I hope Tymer and Jo have at least a few moments one-on-one this series. It should be an interesting bout, but the Owls have had the Whalers’ number all season, winning every single one of their regular season meetings. That being said, anything can happen in playoffs and Vancouver has already stunned one favorite. Back to the prospect, over two regular seasons, NoNo Jo has gotten 56 goals, 50 assists for 106 points and was drafted in the second round by the Winnipeg Aurora. Jo also has had 77 penalty minutes, 324 shots, 6 game winning goals and 240 hits. Jo led their team in scoring this last season, being a point per game with 33 goals and 33 assists for 66 points (perfectly balanced). With a leap in their game likely coming next season, NoNo Jo could be one of the best players in the SMJHL next season as the Northern Conference opens up. In their currently short postseason career (interestingly, both series that Jo has been a part of as of yet have gone the distance to seven games) NoNo Jo has 14 games played for 3 goals, 7 assists, 10 points with 38 shots on goal, 24 hits and 1 game winning goal. Ultimate bragging rights and a trip to the conference finals are on the line for Jo and the Whalers as they could look to rain on the parade (or rather prevent a parade from ever happening) in Quebec as the Owls be losing around half of their team to age outs this coming offseason.

With a limited (however skilled) prospect pool, the Aurora will be looking to expand in terms of players in their pipeline as soon as possible. With that we are going to look at some potential S77 targets for the Aurora. Note that this writer has very little skill when it comes to roster building with most of the experience coming from a failed S73 WJC team that did not make it out of the group stage, so take any names here with a major grain of salt.

Leading the way is diamond in the rough, Knights

C Pohler Beargeron who recorded 40 points on the Kelowna Knights this season, impressive for a rookie on a team that was struggling. Honestly, most of the reason that Beargeron is on this list is because of the name and how much that would fit with the theme, mascot, and vibe of Winnipeg. I don’t expect much from this little bear cub outside of that, but that means anything else is a bonus. Kelowna was swept aside by the dominant Quebec City Citadelles in the first round of the playoffs, but Pohler Beargeron was tied with the most points on the team with 3, including 2 goals, one of which was the first one scored by the Knights in the playoffs and led the charge for them to make the two final games relatively close against the Owls. True, most Winnipeg fans tuned into the first-round games between Quebec City and Kelowna to watch Juan Tymer, but their hearts were won over by the little polar bear on skates.

Speaking of bears,

D AT-AT Wøllker has been a solid defensive player for the Great Falls Grizzlies. While he was last on the team in scoring, he still has a plus ten in plus minus while being fourth on the team in time on ice as well as being willing to be physical and maybe a little dirty (like targeting the shield generators) with 52 penalty minutes, which led the team and was second on the team in blocked shots, behind only the top defenseman John Peanut. Wøllker and the Grizzlies are still in the midst of playoffs, having sunk the Anchorage Armada in the first round. His stats in the post season are still following the pattern from the regular season with time on ice and penalty minutes, but also leads the team in blocked shots with 17 in 6 games. What is notable is that they have the same agent as retiring Winnipeg player Mandosson who swears by Wølker and that Wølker will be able to go from one bear team to the best bear team. You can catch their games this week against the Newfoundland Berserkers to see if they can pull off an upset against the second-best team in the league.

While we are in Great Falls, we should talk about Grizzlies

G Elvar Gil-Galad who is one the biggest new names in goaltending to come about in the SMJHL. Gil-Galad (16-9-2, .912) got eased into the net this season with veteran Lee Harrison being the main starter, but when playoffs rolled around, Gil-Galad started all six games. Gil-Galad has a record of 4-2 and a save percentage of .887, but they were against the explosive offense of the Anchorage, with one of their losses being a blowout at 6-1. However, in the Bears’ victories, Gil-Galad let in, at most, 2 goals. Now, the Aurora do not need a goalie with Rhett Carpet being one of the youngest members of the current Aurora roster with some of the most TPE and a very wealthy benefactor and sponsorship with Winnipeg Carpet Company, but preparing for the future and getting a solid tandem in net in 3 seasons would benefit the Aurora by giving Carpet time to rest and be good to go for playoffs.

If Winnipeg wants to keep drawing from the Yukon well, there are several great candidates, including Malamutes

McLovin who finished the regular season with 23 points as a defender on a struggling Yukon. In playoffs, McLovin managed 2 assists in 6 games, but it is his work ethic that is making him an attractive name to teams with the third most blocked shots in playoffs.

Another name that is here mostly for the memes is Kraken

Swedish Chef. It is well known that Aurora has (or used to have) a lot of Swedish players on their roster, making the addition of someone who can give them a taste of home a very appetizing prospect. Think of all the meatballs that could be made and the language that will definitely be pronounced correctly.

With that, our dive into the young talent pool of the Aurora (with it being clear that Winnipeg’s philosophy is quality not quantity when it comes to prospects) and the prospects they should be checking out concludes. Next season will certainly be different for the Aurora, but it remains to be seen if the Aurora are able to maintain their success with these new players, but Winnipeg has been able to do plug in play in the past, but generally with more experienced players. After taking chances on three completely fresh players, we do think that this experiment will absolutely work out even if one of them (ahem NoNo Jo) has a hard time counting.

Be sure to tune into the playoffs of both the SMJHL and the SHL this week as, again, NoNo Jo and Juan Tymer will face each other in the juniors and of course, the exciting matchup of the Winnipeg Aurora versus the San Francisco Pride. For those wanting to see more of Langston Hardison-Laurent before he dons a Winnipeg Jersey, you will have to wait for the international competitions in the WJC and the IIHF where LHL was named to both Team Rhine and Team Switzerland.

Until Next Time!

WC: 2600