Team finishes regular season at the top of the division and overall league standings
The Winkler Flyers ended the 2024-2025 Manitoba Junior Hockey League regular season last weekend decidedly on top.
Winkler’s dominating record of 46 wins, eight losses, three overtime losses, and one shootout loss gave them 96 points, enough to handily take first place in both the MGEU East Division and the league overall, with the Steinbach Pistons (89 points) and the Portage Terriers (81 points) trailing them in second and third place in both cases.
The team wrapped things up with a trio of wins this past week, starting with a 3-0 blanking of the Freeze in Winnipeg March 12 that saw Leif Ekblad make 17 saves and Niklas Gudmundson, Nicholas Mckee, and Jacob Michelson score.
The rematch in Winkler Friday night saw the Freeze manage just a single goal to Winkler’s eight, which came courtesy of Will Lyons, Mckee, Brody Beauchemin, Mathys Blanchette, Michelson, Blake Matheson, Jayce Legaarden, and Kam Thomas. Liam Ernst was called to make 15 saves as the Flyers massively outshot the Freeze 87-16.
Saturday’s final regular season game against the Selkirk Steelers ended the season on a high note, with Winkler taking it 6-2.
Marcus Hughes, Liam Carlone, Matheson, Jared Grenier, Michelson, and Owen Wallace ran up the score, while Ekblad denied 20 of 22 shots on goal. His teammates fired 38 the other way.
Head coach and general manager Matthew Melo, who joined the team last fall, is feeling good about the Flyers’ output this season and their chances for successfully defending their MJHL title in the weeks ahead.
“It’s been a really incredible first season,” he said Monday. “I’m obviously really proud of our group, coming off a championship, the way they just continued to raise the standard and build on what was accomplished last season. They really haven’t taken a step back. A large part of the core and staff has been driving that, has returned.
“It could be easy to be complacent, but we have a lot of guys here who understand what it takes to win, who desire to win, and who have done an incredible job leading our group to the success that we’ve had this season.”
Transitioning to a new coach can be a tricky period for a team, even a championship-winning one, Melo observed, and it took a little while for the Flyers to find their feet last fall.
“I think we probably started a little slower than we would have liked to,” he said. “But then, after a little bit of time here, I’d say 10, 12 games, we started to find a little bit of a rhythm and have been building ever since.
“I think we feel really good about how our games progressed, but all year long we’ve talked about how there’s certainly areas we’ve had to continue to grow in and refine and build,” Melo shared. “So it hasn’t been perfect by any means, but we feel really good with where our group’s at right now, heading into the playoffs.”
The Flyers will take on the Niverville Nighthawks in the best-of-seven divisional first round. Game one is in Winkler Friday night.
Niverville finished fourth in the East Division and fifth in the league overall with 35 wins and 23 losses to their names.
Winkler came out ahead all five times the two teams squared off against each other this winter.
“We had some success against them throughout the regular season, but they’re a highly skilled, a fast team, well coached, so it should be a really good match up,” Melo said.
In the days leading up to the playoffs, Melo says he and his coaching staff aren’t looking to mix things up much.
“Our game never really changes … there’s going to be a pretty large focus on what we can control in our game, the things we do really well. So it’s just going to be a little bit more of the same in terms of our preparation this week.
“It’s going to be talking a lot about who we are, how we play to have success, and how we can establish those things early on in a game or early on in a playoff series … talking about consistency and steadiness and obviously just getting buy-in from the entire group. It takes everybody.”
Flyers honoured
The MJHL handed out its seasonal awards last week, and three Flyers made the list.
Melo got the Muzz MacPherson Coach of the Year award, netminder Liam Ernst won the Ed Belfour Top Goaltender honour, and centre Brody Beauchemin won the Frank McKinnon Memorial Trophy for Outstanding Ability & Sportsmanship.
Melo says he’s honoured to be recognized in his inaugural season at the head of the Flyers.
“I just felt really, really privileged and grateful for the amazing players that we have here,” he said. “And then just for the staff and the people, the good people that I’m surrounded by that have just made it so easy for me to step in here and be myself.
“I could name 15, 20 people who just are so selfless and come together to make this group what it is. The award goes to me, but I’ve learned very early you can’t do anything, you can’t have success without really good people surrounding you.”
Ernst and Beauchemin’s honours were both well-earned, Melo noted.
Ernst got 30 wins in 38 games, making 953 saves and giving up just 63 goals for a 0.934 save percentage.
“We’re really proud of him,” Melo said, noting the 19-year-old has really stepped up into his role this season. “There are a few different points throughout the year where he elevated his game to another level. All year long he’s been steady, dialed-in, focused, and confident. It couldn’t have happened to a better kid to get recognized by the league for top goaltender.”
Beauchemin getting singled out for sportsmanship came as no surprise to anyone who’s coached or played with him, Melo noted.
“I think he had one penalty all year, and it was a delay of game for flipping the puck out of the glass,” he said, chuckling. “He plays with integrity, but back to back years he’s finished top four in league scoring as well, and he’s probably left points on the table, to be honest, to play a really selfless game, to defend first.”
Beauchemin has contributed 68 points this season—26 goals and 42 assists—just one point shy of team leader Jayce Legaarden and fourth in the league overall.
Numerous other Flyers have also had stellar seasons, Melo said.
“We had Isaiah Peters as a first team all-star as a D-man, and he was in the conversation for defenceman of the year. Kam Thomas, the local, was on the rookie all-star team, and then Matt Levoie was also on the rookie all-star team. So we had quite a few names in the mix there for the league awards.
“Again, it’s just a by-product of our group collectively and the way we play, the way we desire to have the team’s success first and then the obvious by-product is individuals being rewarded as well.”
