Lumber Kings Reach Mid-Way Point of Season In Good Shape

Goaltending is the backbone of a good hockey club.  For much of the first half of their season, the Pembroke Lumber Kings had trouble protecting their backend, but the arrival of Michael Modelski in late October has turned the tide for the Kings who went into the holiday break as one of the hottest teams in the Central Canada Hockey League.

Pembroke Lumber Kings goalie on his knees to make a save watches puck go to the corner of the rink.
Goaltender Michael Modelski has solidified the Lumber Kings backend since arriving in late October.

With Modelski between the pipes, the Kings won 7 of their last 10 games.  Of the three losses, two came just before the break to the league leading Rockland Nationals, with one of the losses in overtime.  Rockland has been beaten only five times all season and has been listed as one of the top Junior A teams in the country for several weeks.

In the 16 games that Modelski has dressed for the Kings, his record is 11 and 5 and he’s at the top of the league with a stellar save percentage of .928 and a 2.28 goals against average.  He’s also picked up a pair of shutouts and has consistently been named a game star because of his outstanding performance including games where the Kings have been badly outshot by the opposition.

Prior to Modelski arriving in Pembroke, the Lumber Kings were giving up too many goals and trying to outscore the competition.  That worked sometimes because the Kings have one of the top offences in the league. In fact, Pembroke has two players who are chasing coveted statistical records. Eric Barnard is in the running to win the league’s scoring title and Jayson Alegria has his sights on becoming a 50-goal scorer. Through 30 games, Bernard leads the league in scoring with 52 points while his linemate, Alegria, has netted 31 goals.

Lumber Kings player on his knees shoots the puck at the Nepean Raiders net.
Lumber Kings forward Jayson Alegria leads the Central Canada Hockey League with 31 goals scored at the mid-way point of the season.

The last time a Lumber King led the league in scoring was in the 2014-15 season when Felix Chamberland had 99 points. You have to go back to the 2008-09 season to find the last time a Lumber King scored 50 goals in a season.  Andy Starczewski had 51 markers that season in 60 games. The league now plays only 55 games, so if Alegria stays healthy he will need to find the back of the net 19 more times in the 25 games remaining on Pembroke’s schedule to join the elite 50-goal club.

Behind the blueline, 20 year old defenceman Easton Penna has been a workhorse for the Kings, often playing more than 30 minutes a game.  He is the league’s top scoring defenceman with 3 goals and 37 assists for 40 points in 28 games. On paper, the Kings now have a line-up that can compete every game but with the league’s trading deadline approaching on January 10th there will likely be more moves by head coach and general manager Alex Armstrong who has demonstrated he’s not afraid to make changes.

Armstrong was very busy in November and December.  Among the many moves he made was sending forward Kyle Cameron to Renfrew for Emmitt Robillard, a local player who was groomed in the Pembroke Minor Hockey Association.  Armstrong also brought in and then shipped out forward Vital Dinis to the Brockville Braves for future considerations and then moved forward Miko Kahriman to Nepean in a three-way deal that brought forwards Brody Simpson and Cal Fielder from Renfrew.

Mixed in with the player moves have been injuries. Two defencemen in particular have missed a lot of games because of injuries. If Josh Fortier and Maverick Hayes can stay healthy in the second half of the season, it will bolster the defence and put the Kings in a much better position to continue climbing the league standings.

Last year, the Lumber Kings had to win their way into the playoffs on the final day of the regular season.  They gave the eventual league champion, Navan Grads, a great series losing four games to two, with three of those losses in overtime.  The Kings have several players who competed in that series, including Barnard, Alegria and Penna, all of whom are looking forward to a longer post-season run as their junior hockey eligibility nears an end.

Pembroke Lumber Kings player shoots puck at Rockland Nationals net.
Pembroke Lumber Kings captain Eric Barnard leads the Central Canada Hockey League in scoring at the mid-way point of the season with 52 points.

As the Kings prepare for the resumption of their season on Friday, January 3rd in Brockville, they have a record of 16-12-1-1 for 34 points.  That places Pembroke in third in the Robinson division, one point back of the Braves and six behind the Carleton Place Canadians, but the Kings have games in hand on both teams.  In the overall league standings, the Lumber Kings sit seventh in the 12 team league, but the standings are bunched up leaving lots of room for teams to move up and down the standings.

Pembroke’s first home game of 2025 will be on Sunday, January 5th at 2 p.m. when the Ottawa Junior Senators visit the Pembroke Memorial Centre for a matinee.  The Senators have played more games than any other team in the league and have struggled with 29 points in 36 games. They are in tenth place in the league standings, on the outside looking in for a playoff spot.