Newly retooled Petes searching for some cohesion since trade deadline

Ahead of showdown with Knights, Wilson juggles top lines and urges players to follow systems

It’s not situation critical yet but the Peterborough Petes lack of cohesion since the Jan. 10 trade deadline is a concern.

They were riding an eight-game win streak and showing potential as a championship contender when the final pieces seemed to be put in place in blockbuster trades to acquire high-end proven winners such as Owen Beck, Avery Hayes and Gavin White along with Brennan Othmann’s addition in November.

The results so far have been mixed at best as the team has gone 2-4 since Jan. 10, including surrendering 13 goals in a pair of weekend losses.

Petes head coach Rob Wilson told The Examiner on Saturday night he was seeing too much individual play.

On Tuesday, Wilson had a heartto-heart talk with his group about how they need to play to have success.

“It’s time to put the team first,” Wilson said.

There are 25 regular-season games left, which is more than enough time to get things rolling.

“I’m not saying right now is critical but I think it’s the time things have to start coming together,” said Wilson.

“I told them (Tuesday) ‘I’m not putting any pressure on you right now saying you have to win Thursday night. You have to win Sunday.’ What I want to see, though, is 60 minutes of complete hockey and us playing at our very best and as a group. If that happens, we’re going to get wins.”

They host the London Knights at 7:05 p.m. Thursday and the Hamilton Bulldogs at 2:05 p.m. Sunday.

“The London Knights are one of the best teams in the CHL. Is it an easy game? Absolutely not but I think it’s the perfect game for us to play as a group. I told them, ‘You don’t have to win every game. You don’t win every game in playoffs, but you have to start playing as a group and I want to see it,” the coach said.

Wilson said he’s always evaluating the coaching staff’s decisions, as well, and he thinks maybe it was unfair, he said, to put the three new forwards together and expect them to click while adjusting to new systems and teammates.

In practice this week, he’s put Tucker Robertson between Hayes and Othmann and has Beck centring J.R. Avon and Connor Lockhart.

“We have a lot of systems work here and maybe putting three guys on a line who just got here — even though the other two lines have done extremely well — was really hard on them. It’s hard to find your game and jell as a line and learn systems,” Wilson said.

Robertson, Avon and Lockhart know the systems well and by mixing the newcomers in with them, it may help bring them along, he said.

“Hopefully we can get everyone to understand what we’re doing at the right pace,” he said.

The defence is not built to play the run-and-gun style the forwards were trying to execute on the weekend, he added.

“Our D corps is built like St. Louis was a few years ago to be very difficult to play against in our end and on the rush. Their main skill level is shutting down other teams and, when we play like that as a group, the forwards end up getting what they need out of the game,” Wilson said.

“When we’re looking to just run and gun it’s not going to work for us because that’s not what our defence is built for.”

He’s not worried about team chemistry being upset by the newcomers.

“The kids we have brought in are good guys. I think they’re well received by the team,” the coach said. “Just on the ice we haven’t played as a collective group yet.”

Notes Rob Wilson said defenceman Brian Zanetti is going to need another week to recover from an upper-body injury.