Wings fall short against the Owls; big off season changes coming?

After capturing the President’s Trophy for the first time in franchise history, the Wings and their fans were expecting the team to bring home the championship.

After a rocky start to the playoffs, the Wings managed to turn it around and make it to the conference finals. Unfortunately, the that’s as far as they would get, suffering a 5-0 loss at the hands of the Screech Owls last night.

“I’m proud of the year we had,” said GM Godbout. “The guys played hard and battled all year, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a disappointing end to the season.”

The last thing the Wings want to do is get labelled as the CAHL version of the Leafs: great regular seasons, but no playoff success.

“We have lots of positives to build on from this year. We only lost 3 games all season, had the top goalie in the league, 3 of the top 10 scorers in the league, and had two rookies up for the Calder. The future is still bright here,” said captain Matt Deline.

While everyone is saying all the right things, one can’t help but wonder if changes are coming this summer for the Wings.

Top scorer Mike Hartmann was held pointless in the playoffs, star goaltender Alec Casey contracted COVID a week before the conference finals (allegedly at an underground rave), Jamie MacLennan is due a new contract after having a career year in which he lead the team in assists, and embroiled centerman Ross Machon did not make himself available to media after the game.

“Priority number one this summer is to get all our players under contract for next season,” said GM Godbout. “And as far as I’m concerned, Machon is still a Wing right now and we expect him at training camp next fall.”

However, a reliable source has told us that the Bulldogs and Wings were close to swapping Machon for Matt Fraser just before the trade deadline, but the deal fell through.

So that’s another season in the books for the Wings which saw them set a club record for points, but ultimately fall short of their ultimate goal. While the off season may bring some changes, expect the core of the team to return next year hungrier than ever.