Canucks welcome back MVP
The Niagara Falls Canucks received an early Christmas present this week with the return of 2018/2019 Golden Horseshoe most valuable player Justin Kyle.
Kyle had been playing with the Collingwood Colts of the Ontario Junior Hockey League where he was leading the team in scoring with 24 points in 21 games.
“He reached out and said he wasn’t happy and asked if there was someway he could come back,” Canucks coach/general manager Frank Pietrangelo said. “I talked to Collingwood. It took a while to get the process done. Obviously they weren’t happy. He was a top player for them.”
Kyle, who combined with Mitch Mendonca and Ben Evans on a powerful line last season that helped the Canucks to a Golden Horseshoe championship, didn’t want to get into specifics when asked about his experience with the Colts.
“Things just didn’t work out how I thought they were going to work out but I’m definitely happy to be back here,” he said. “(It was) just a mix of a bunch of things, but I hope they do well. I have some good buddies on that team.
“I knew I had a chance to come back here so I took advantage of that. I’m looking forward to big things.”
Kyle said he had other teams reach out once word got out he wasn’t happy in Collingwood.
“It was all over the map. At the end of the day, I’m just happy to be here,” he said. “I had other teams calling me with offers but I stuck to my guns and decided to come back here.
“It’s kind of like a second home I’ve been playing here for so long and we have a good team too.”
Pietrangelo feels the addition of Kyle goes beyond what the talented forward brings on the ice.
“I think for our league and our team and organization it’s a great thing because it’s not the first time it’s happened,” he said. “The same thing happened to Johnny Curran, Austin Wright and Max Lightfoot. They all wanted to come back.
“I think it speaks volumes about the GOJHL (Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League) as a league and volumes about our program that players want to come back here.”
Pietrangelo said it will take some time to find out the best fit for Kyle on this year’s team.
“Obviously, when you get a player of this magnitude it’s going to help everyone and help our game completely,” he said. “He’s an elite player at this level and the MVP of the league.
“You don’t anticipate something like this when you’re looking to make your team better but when something like this falls into your lap it’s overwhelming at first, but at the same time, you’ve got to make it work for everybody because we’ve had success up to this point.”
The Canucks’ offence has been driven for the most part by the success of the Andrew Bruno-Ryan Donovan-Matthew Riva trio.
“We’ve really relied on one line and our power play for most of our scoring for the most part so this will give us a little bit more balance,” Pietrangelo said.
Kyle said eduction also figured into his decision to return to the Falls.
“I talked with my family and I’m also taking courses at Brock so it was easier to come here and take them in class, that’s part of the reason,” he said.
Kyle is slated to be in the lineup Friday when the Canucks host the Pelham Panthers.
“It will be good for sure,” Kyle said. “I’ve been off the ice for two weeks — I wasn’t able to skate — so now that I’m finally getting to go back on the ice, I’m excited.”
The Canucks are 14-6-2-1 near the halfway point of the season.
“I think we’re more or less where we thought we would be,” Pietrangelo said. “We knew Caledonia was going to be Caledonia again and St. Catharines and Hamilton are always going to be like they are now.
“We knew we would be in the mix for one of the top spots in the league and we are. We dropped a couple of points we regret but overall we’ve played pretty well and been consistent.”
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