Manitoba Moose clear out lockers after disappointing end to season

The Manitoba Moose gathered their personal belongings and said their goodbyes on Monday, heading into their offseason disappointed, and earlier than they’d hoped following a crushing 2-1 loss to the Milwaukee Admirals on Saturday, ending their season.

With the series tied at two games a piece, Milwaukee opened the scoring in the deciding Game 5 on a Mark Janowski goal midway through the second period, and it stayed that way until Jets prospect Jansen Harkins notched his fourth of the AHL playoffs with two minutes left in the third to tie things up at one.

Elation and renewed hope quickly turned to shock, when an unfortunate collision between a pair of Moose players in the neutral zone turned into a two-on-one rush for the Admirals in the dying seconds, ending with Spencer Stastney scoring on a sprawling Moose goaltender, Oskari Salminen to take the 2-1 lead with 27 seconds left in the game which proved to be the game-winner and season-ender for the Moose.

“I guess that’s playoffs, right?” said Moose forward, Jeff Mallot in his year-end availability.

“I think the biggest takeaways we can have is there are really no regrets. I mean, everybody was all in, everybody played as hard as they could, everybody wanted that same outcome. At the end of the day, they’re a good team too. They played well.”

After dropping the series opener, the Moose pulled together back-to-back overtime wins in games two and three to take a 2-1 series lead, giving them two chances to close out the series with Milwaukee and redeem their playoff exit from a year earlier at the hands of these very Admirals.

The storybook ending was not to be, proving just how difficult closing out a series can be.

“It’s an experience thing,” Moose forward Evan Polei said.

“Not a lot of guys have the experience of winning a (playoff) series in professional hockey in this dressing room, and (Milwaukee) may have some more guys but this is the type of game that will get you that experience,” Polei continued.

“It’s just a different type of push you need in that type of game, it’s the hardest thing to do is send a team packing for the summer.”

The season was marred by numerous injuries to key players throughout the season, but still, the Moose finished third in the central division standings, one spot behind Milwaukee, and set a franchise record in power play success, scoring 53 times on 233 attempts, good for a 22.7 per cent success rate.

“We all felt like we had a team to go a bit deeper and any time your season ends early it’s a bit disappointing but for me, I had a great time with all of these guys,” said Moose forward Jansen Harkins, who registered an impressive 50 points (25 goals, 25 assists) in the AHL this season after playing 22 games with the Winnipeg Jets this season.

“I just love the guys, man!” Mallot said when asked about what was most memorable about the season,

“It’s hard every year when you don’t know who is coming back, but you just try to appreciate the moment especially not knowing if the team is going to be structured the same way next year.”

Every player who spoke during the end-of-season media availability revealed details on how close each one was with one another this season. Most crediting the welcoming presence of the leadership group, beginning with captain, Jimmy Oligny.

“His approach to leadership is pure service,” said Mallot, a teammate of Oligny’s for the past three seasons.

“He’s a guy that it doesn’t matter how old you are, how many games you’ve played, it doesn’t matter if it’s your first year here or your tenth year here, he’s showing everybody the same level of respect and he’s raising that level in our locker room year after year. He makes that the standard.”

Oligny missed a good chunk of the season with an injury, but remained an integral part of the team’s success even while unable to compete and was recognized by the AHL as the Yves Dupre Memorial Award recipient as the league’s Man of the Year for his community service and charitable work.

“I thought it was a video session we were heading to,” Oligny recalled of the surprise announcement made while in Milwaukee.

“It’s weird (to receive the award) because it’s not just me. It’s a lot of people who are working behind the camera that you never see them but they are the people that give us the opportunity to go out in the community and they are setting that up for us, so it’s kind of weird, like, all the attention is on me but it’s like a big team effort.” Oligny said.

The moment was a special one for the entire team according to head coach Mark Morrison, who described the scene after the announcement was delivered by Jets assistant general Manager, Craig Heisinger.

“It was giant group hugs for him because he deserved it,” Morrison said.

“He’s set the bar for this organization very high. He treats people the right way and teaches the younger guys how to treat people the right way.”

While happy for their captain’s recognition, the team ends the campaign on a difficult note without meeting expectations of a long playoff run.

Now they’re forced to take that disappointment into the summer and try and use it as motivation to work towards a better fate next season.