For today’s deep dive, I’m going to look at the team the Maine Timber. I’ve loved their logo and concept, but I wanted to find out more about the team.

While Maine Timber is relatively new to the league, the franchise itself has been around since S25, over 30 seasons. They have had their ups and downs throughout those seasons, ultimately leading to their rebrand.

Name & Branding: This is something that is relatively new for this team, with the rebrand and location shift coming in S52, just over 8 seasons ago. The previous logos were definitely something that I liked, especially just the helmet, so I attempted to find out the rationale for the shift. Finding this post, we see that the Halifax Raiders didn’t exactly have what seems to be the best history, or the best reputation. While the team had two championships in S26 and S30, they quickly fell out into being one of the lower ranked teams after those seasons. Coming into the rebrand, hoping for a fresh start and to remove the negativity that may have been following them, the team rebranded.

In the seasons since the rebrand, they have steadily climbed in the rankings, moving from 10th all the way into 3rd in the more recent seasons. While they haven’t been able to shore up another championship yet, it does look as though the team is working hard to maintain quality players.

As of S59 the roster featured a good mix of S57 - S60 players, with one S56 player still on the roster. They had 20 players on roster, with 11 offensive players, 6 defensive players, and 3 goalies prior to looking for UFAs. This allowed them to run at least three lines, and provide their players with some much needed rest while out on the ice. While they are heavy on the right wings compared to left wings, those players can potentially slot over and make it easier for some team flexibility. Last season, the team had an average around 350 TPE, which looks great, but is skewed by having four players over 600 TPE. The Maine Timber also had 4 players sitting under 200 TPE. Removing both of those outliers, the team sits at just over 300 TPE on average. This isn’t bad, at the end of the season, but one might hope for more players being near the cap.

Looking at the SMJHL draft they were able to bring in a lot of defensive talent, an area which they desperately need. This includes four defensemen, two forwards (one of whom is a center) and one of the highest touted goalies in the draft.

Their TPE average being below the cap may account for the down season in the previous season, compared to their more winning records of the past. The Maine Timber were sitting near the bottom of the rankings for the S59 season. Throughout some of their rougher seasons, with more losses than wins, it looks as though GMs did not last very long within the team. Currently, Toast and CementHands are the General managers, and CementHands has been for a while. With stability in their general management team (one member having been a GM since the rebrand), it is hopeful that this is just a down season, and that the previous trend that the Maine Timber had been working on can continue.

Approved, +5 TPE for @SchwarzNarr