Blazers focus on consistency with Brunicke, Koci out for World Junior camps

The Kamloops Blazers say consistency has been top of mind as the team heads into the Holiday season down two blueliners off at World Junior selection camps.

Harrison Brunicke and Matteo Koci were invited to their country’s national junior team selection camp — Brunicke for Canada and Koci for Czechia. Brunicke is currently out of the lineup with an upper body injury.

In their absence, the Blazers say it will be an opportunity for some of their younger players to step up and fill the ranks.

“Obviously, they are a couple big players on our team, but it’s kind of the next-man-up mentality for our guys,” said captain Emmitt Finnie.

“It’s going to be a good opportunity for guys to play some bigger minutes.”

Netminder Dylan Ernst agreed, adding he felt the team had improved since last year but still hadn’t reached the apex of its potential this year.

“I think we still have a lot more potential to give, I don't think we're near our best, so I'm excited to see where we could be ranked at the end of the year,” he said.

Not invited to camp

Finnie said he felt slightly disappointed he wasn’t invited to Team Canada’s selection camp, having put himself into a position where he felt he could be chosen.

“There's a lot of good players going there, and I knew it was gonna be tough from the beginning so confidence is still high, and I'm looking forward to this weekend,” Finnie said.

He added he felt he still had more to prove this season, and was going to use the snub as motivation instead of treating it as a setback.

Ernst said he felt Finnie should have been invited as well, but said the Captain doesn’t seem to be fazed.

“He's been in the gym every day since, he was in the gym before that, so it's not affecting him at all,” Ernst said.

“Obviously we're all really happy for Bruno, well deserved for him.”

Consistency a priority

The Blazers are coming off a roller-coaster weekend in which they won big and lost big — and that’s an area the team has identified for improvement.

“Big thing within the dressing room has been consistency,” Finnie said.

“That's what we want to get back to. We had a couple wins in a row, which was good, and then we had a couple losses. So if we can stay consistent, we're gonna win a lot more hockey games.”

Ernst earned his first shutout this season when the Blazers blanked the Victoria Pats 6-0 last Friday, snapping a four-game losing streak.

“It's also a big relief to get out of the way,” Ernst said.

“I thought the team played excellent in front of me. They didn't give them much and I think if we play like that every night, there's not a lot of teams that could.”

The following night the team fell 7-1 to the Everett Silvertips. Ernst said he felt the team hadn’t prepared itself adequately for the challenge of the division-leading ’Tips.

“Going into Everett, you got to be ready for anything and I don’t think we got ourselves to that point, and it showed,” he said.

Looking forward, Finnie said he thinks the team has several winnable games coming before the holidays, which he said would help start the new year on the right foot.

Next up for the Blazers are the Seattle Thunderbirds Friday night. Fans are invited to bring bears for the annual Teddy Bear Toss. Puck drop is 7 p.m.