In the 77 completed SMJHL seasons, no team hit higher heights than the S65 Detroit Falcons.
Their 59-5-2 record in the regular season holds records for both wins and points, and barring an extension of the regular season it will probably never be broken. In fact, they lost as many games in the postseason as they lost in regulation during the regular season. Both Yukon and Quebec City took a game off them in the quarters and semis respectively, and Newfoundland’s dynasty took one last breath by pushing them to seven games in the final.
How does one team build something so perfect? And how do they follow up on it? Let’s take a look.
Star Power Up Front
Detroit led the league in both goals for and goals against, and we’ll start with the forward crop that put up a whopping 330 goals - an average of 5 per game. The centerpiece was Ivan Lacksamus Jr. The Swiss forward has enjoyed a fantastic SHL career to this point, becoming a Triple Gold Club member and multiple time scoring champion and MVP. His potential really showed in Detroit, where he took home this season’s J scoring title with 94 points, 46 of them goals. The point total broke that era’s league record for points in a season, while it was second in goals in that generation (failing to beat S61 Greyson Cooper’s mark of 49). Sidekick Eddie Creller didn’t hit those heights in the SHL, with a career spent mostly as a depth IA piece on rebuilding teams, but this season it was good enough to come second in league scoring behind Lacksamus. The likes of Mrs. McSaves, Bubba Tree, and Sam Azjha rounded out the attacking core.
Funnily enough, Lacksamus’s successor as Falcons star was already on the team. Bnana NWaffles was buried on the depth chart and put up a meager 19 points that season, but before long he would be breaking some of Lacksamus’s records.
A Deep Defense
The Falcons had the top 3 picks of the S64 SHL Draft in Holden Steady, Johnny Patey, and Moritz Seider, and while none of them really lived up to that hype in the pros, they were living up to it in junior. In a season where Rand al’Thor and Louise St. Martin were putting forth the two best scoring seasons by a blueliner in J history, the Falcons quietly dominated defensively with their depth. The top two pairings (those three top prospects plus Drakocar Sunazzo) all posted 50+ point seasons, while youngsters Julian Flörsch (before his eventual move to forward) and Pil Sung (who never panned out at the SHL level) soaked up the rest of the time. And with how dominant the team was, their defenders having negative giveaway/takeaway ratios was less about them being bad and more about the team always having the puck.
Good Enough Goalkeeping
This team had not one but two very reliable keepers, too. Toms Zīle and Evert Jansson both had save percentages in the .910s and top-3 GAAs, with strong underlying numbers to back them up. Zīle even got his first 5 SHL starts that season with Toronto….winning them all. They didn’t need incredible goaltending (and both major goaltending awards went to other teams), they just needed it to not be a liability. Both were a positive that made the team better, and that’s the final piece of the jigsaw.
The Follow-Up
S66 brought a slew of changes to the J. The elimination of fifth seasons, abolition of the fourth line in the J, and the move to FHM 8, plus general graduations all meant change was a-comin’. Even more came with Detroit’s head GM, G2019, stepping down, though he was replaced from within.
Only six players remained on the S66 squad from the previous season’s perfection - NWaffles, Sung, Flörsch, C Jobin, JoJo Larkin, and Zīle. With that much turnover, they never even came close to duplicating their S65 success, finishing out of a playoff spot back when that was a thing. Another ring wasn’t too far away though. After two seasons in the midtable trying to retool, they got back to the summit in S68.