60°F
weather icon Clear

Wranglers start over after Finals run

You need to lose a championship before you know how to win one. What nonsense. What stupidity.

Whoever believes that never has noticed the flux of a minor league hockey roster, which tends to be amended more than Paris Hilton's boyfriend du jour. Whoever believes it never has slid in Glen Gulutzan's skates.

Opportunities to win titles should be cherished at any level, but especially those where personnel changes are more standard than giveaways. The Wranglers owned such a chance in their first Kelly Cup Finals five months ago and couldn't grab it, losing to Cincinnati in six games. It took Gulutzan 10 days to get over the loss.

"I always say that it ends the day I make my first call on a player for the next season, because there is always pressure to get better," the sixth-year Las Vegas coach and general manager said. "If you have a team together in the NHL for years with a core group of 14-15 guys, maybe they have to lose to win. But at our level, when you might only return five of 20 guys and those five weren't among your core, it's really hard to say that."

Example: The Wranglers opened training camp Friday, and included on their roster are 10 players taking part in American Hockey League camps. Several could find their way here within days, meaning predicting what kind of team Las Vegas will resemble when opening its season Oct. 17 at Alaska is like flawlessly forecasting stock market shifts in the next month.

Crazy. The Wranglers might have learned more from the journey that earned them a spot in the Finals than anything that happened against Cincinnati, which while even with Las Vegas on paper was clearly better on ice.

You would think a four-game sweep in the conference finals would be an ideal amount of momentum for a team chasing its first championship, that eliminating Utah 4-0 was exactly what the Wranglers needed entering those final Kelly Cup games. You would be wrong.

"That sweep was a fluke," Gulutzan said. "We make a lot of mistakes, and Utah outplayed us in a few games. We were never really challenged mentally. We never had to raise our game up. Cincinnati played better than us in (the Finals), but we had lost our edge and couldn't get it back."

Losing the title won't aid the Wranglers in how to win one should they again advance that far this season, but at least a mindset has been created that suggests a team built and coached by Gulutzan will be among those capable of doing so.

He isn't happy with the conditioning of some players who reported to camp, and it's true a few familiar names might find themselves fighting for jobs when new ones hit town and the pace of practice intensifies.

Gulutzan is also a bit anxious about having signed five rookie defensemen. Of course, he did the same thing three years ago when Las Vegas compiled 112 points. "But," he said, "they have to be the right five."

It's even more significant at a level where you might be unsure where scoring will come from each night, the idea that you had better play consistent hockey at your own end to have any chance. A foundation that begins with a stout defensive zone is then, now, always the best foundation.

Gulutzan says the Wranglers weren't disciplined or consistent against Cincinnati. They didn't at any point play their best. For whatever reason, they weren't themselves the entire series.

None of that matters now. Not at this level. Training camp, unlike in the land of multimillion dollar contracts and a pre-established pecking order of the best teams, really does mean a time of rebirth and legitimate hope for everyone.

"Obviously, when you get that close to winning it all and lose, it makes you hungrier," Wranglers center Tyler Mosienko said. "All the guys that were here last season are like that. But there are steps -- making the team, reaching the playoffs -- you have to worry about first before getting back to the Finals. We have to keep in mind there is a road to get there and keep focused on following it.

"Experience is important, but believing you have to lose a championship to know how to win one ... that's a pipe dream."

At this level of hockey, it's stupid.

When opportunity arrives, you want to grab it. You never know when it might come again, because you never know whom you might be calling a teammate.

Ed Graney can be reached at 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.

Don't miss the big stories. Like us on Facebook.
THE LATEST