Stan Butler has high praise for defenceman Kyle Wood.
The big Battalion defender will make his season debut Thursday night when the Troops face the Kingston Frontenacs on home ice.
“I think you will see Thursday night, I don’t think there’s too many defencemen in the league that are better than him,” stated the Battalion head coach at his weekly media conference on Wednesday.
“If you watch practices you would see how dominating he is, like I said I don’t think there are too many defenceman - he’s at least in the top 3 defencemen in the league - so anytime you can have a top three defenceman in the league added to your lineup it is going to help.”
Wood has been out all season long waiting for a fractured scaphoid bone in his wrist to heal.
The Colorado Avalanche prospect has been down this road before, as he missed 33 games to start the memorable 2013-14 season with the Troops after suffering a serious knee injury in training camp.
He believes the biggest adjustment will be getting used to the pace of real OHL game action again.
“I’ve been practicing for a couple of weeks now so I’m kind of getting used to that but I feel it will take me a couple games just to get up to speed and kind of get used to the new guys and how they play but I think it’s going to be fun getting back into the games,” said Wood.
Despite the hand injury, expect Wood to be a key part of the Battalion power play right away.
He netted 11 power play markers last year - many of which came from his bomb courtesy of his signature off-wing one-timer.
“Obviously the power play was a big part of my success last year and I’m just going to try to do the same thing I did last year and hopefully we have the same success we did and contribute how I can,” said Wood who totalled 16 goals and 24 assists for 40 points in 67 games last season.
Something to prove
The Troops will be motivated tonight that Kingston’s impressive win 4-1 win in November 6th in Kingston was an anomaly.
“Probably in the three years I have been here that’s probably the most dominating of a performance of a team has had against us,” admitted Butler.
“They just dominated us and we weren’t really in that game. the biggest thing with them is they are a divisional team. They are ahead of us in the standings and they are a team we want to close the gap on.”
Infirmary update
Believe it or not the return of Kyle Wood may be a indication the Troops are finally getting healthy. Butler says Brady Lyle and Brett Hargrave are still about two weeks away while Jake Smith may get clearance to return to the crease as early as this morning. Forward David Sherman appears ready to go after missing a dozen games with a groin injury.
