The Maine Mariners are coming off a 32-32-8 record during the 2023-24 season, which was just good enough to allow them to sneak into the Kelly Cup Playoffs on the final day of the regular season for the third straight season. However, they would get eliminated in the opening round despite taking the Eastern Conference Champion Adirondack Thunder to seven games. As the 2024-25 season approaches, it will be a new-look Maine Mariners that will be taking the ice, and on a bigger note, Head Coach Terrence Wallin mentioned that the team doesn’t expect to have someone wearing the “C” on opening night, but does expect to have assistant captains and a leadership group. He does anticipate that Maine will name a captain at some point this season.
“Absolutely that’s what we’re excited about is that new look, I don’t think stale is the right word but with these new faces and bodies coming in theirs a lot of fresh blood and hunger in our room and I think that’s the #1 point that we are trying to get across to everybody. We are going to be competitive and we have some guys that are going to be ready to make that jump to the American League, that’s what myself, Tolks, and Staubby are most excited about”
-Wallin when asked if this going to be a new-look Mariners team
Key Losses
The Mariners had a tough off-season as a lot of their core players from the last few seasons have signed elsewhere. Alex Kile who is the franchise leader for Maine in games played, goals, points, and assists would end up signing with the Florida Everblades along with Connor Doherty who had spent the last three seasons as the captain of the Mariners. The Mariners would also lose five players who decided to take the overseas route as Kyle Keyser, Fedor Gordeev, Andrew Peski, Chase Zieky, and Gabriel Chicoine will all be playing overseas next season. It may only be five players that are heading overseas but all of them were key pieces of the Mariners over the last few seasons. Along with the loss of Kile and Doherty it’s going to prove to be a big blow for the Mariners next season. More on the impact of the Mariners losses can be found here
“Ya, we want players who want to be here and ultimately those guys didn’t feel like they wanted to be here so that’s what we’re focused on. Obviously on the ice they’ll be missed but we wanna focus on the guys we have in the locker room and we’re really excited about that group”
-Wallin on some of the Mariners key pieces not returning to Maine for the 2024-25 season.
Front Office Changes
The Maine Mariners had a busy off-season as they shook up their coaching staff as well as their front office as Johnny McInnis stepped down as assistant coach and he was replaced by Zach Tolkinen. The Lino Lakes, Minnesota native would spend seven seasons playing in the ECHL as he put up 23 goals and 88 assists for 111 points in 441 games with the Elmira Jackals, Missouri Mavericks, Rapid City Rush, Wheeling Nailers, Fort Wayne Komets, and the Mariners. He would be named the first captain in franchise history for the Mariners.
Cam Briere was promoted to Director of Hockey Operations. Briere, who has been the team’s video coach since 2019, will continue in his new role as video coach. Brad Staubitz would be brought on as the Director of Player Development. Staubitz had spent the previous eight seasons with the Sarnia Sting. He spent five years as an assistant coach with Sarnia before spending the last two seasons as the Associate Head Coach.
“I think it’s going to be a big difference for our organization, not just our players but we’ve brought in to extrodinary people in Tolks {Zack Tolkinen} and Stauby, Stauby obviously has a long decrated playing career, he was coaching in the OHL so he can help with scouting, Tolks and I played together while we were here and when we were in Rapid City so there was already that relationship built in and I think it will be nice to have a defenseman back there talking to our defensivemen day in and day out and they can pick his brain and learn from a guy that played a lot of games at this level, we’re really excited about all three of those guys and we give our guys the resources to take it and run with it and our new ownership should be phenomenal with Dexter Paine
-Wallin on the new additions off the ice
New Kids On The Block and Forwards
There’s no question that the Mariners lost a lot of offensive talent in the off-season, but they reloaded with a lot of promising young guns who will look to replace what Maine lost in the off-season. Heading into the season, three players are entering their first full season in Maine who can make a big contribution offensively. The Mariners also have many solid guys who can fit in well in the middle six, including Brooklyn Kalmikov, who is coming off back-to-back 20-goal seasons, along with Bennett Stockdale and Xander Lamppa, who both made good impressions late in the season after finishing up their collegiate careers.
Jacob Hudson- The 23-year-old forward joins the Mariners after playing in 13 games with the South Carolina Stingrays last year, putting up six goals and three assists for nine points, including a hat-trick on March 17th vs Savannah Ghost Pirates. Hudson had 37 goals and 51 assists for 88 points in 74 games over the course of his three years at St. Francis University.
Patrick Guay- The addition of Guay gives the Mariners a young offensive forward who has proven he can score at the ECHL Level. Guay spent the first two years of his career with the Savannah Ghost Pirates, where he put up 27 goals and 54 assists for 81 points in 74 games.
I think bringing in Patty {Patrick Guay} and Jake {Jacob Hudson} will be big for our team, obviously Huddy had a good end of the year and he’s a guy we’ve been after since his major junior days and I’ve had a lot of eyes on him and i’m really excited for him to come into camp and Patty’s shown that he can do it in this league but we wanted to make sure this is a stepping stone for these guys to play in the American League. Our thought process through all of this is to develop these guys in a competitive nature and with the guys we are bringing in we should have a lot of that”.
-Wallin on adding Patrick Guay and Jacob Hudson to the forward group
Sebastian Vidmar– The Swedish forward was acquired by the Mariners at last year’s deadline and made an impact immediately, putting up three goals and giving assists for eight points in 12 games before suffering a season-ending injury. Vidmar is a player who thrived playing in the North when he was with Adirondack as he put up 37 goals and 42 assists for 79 points as a member of the Thunder. Vidmar should easily be able to put up 20 goals this season for the Mariners.
A Young Defensive Group
Last season, the Maine Mariners were able to get a lot of production out of their blue line, but they’ve lost their two key offensive weapons on the blueline with Gabriel Chicoine going overseas and Ethan Ritchie signing in Fort Wayne as those two provided 24 of the 44 goals scored by Mariners defense. Coming into this season, it’s going to be a very young group of blueliners, which consists of four rookie defensemen, including two that will be getting their first taste of ECHL action this season.
The Mariners will look to players like Jason Horvath and Justin Bean to lead the young defensive blue line. Horvath has just three years of ECHL experience and has played just 82 games over that time, which includes 56 games with Maine. Bean, who spent last year in Hungary, is the only Mariners defenseman who has more than 100 games of ECHL experience.
“Ya, I think with some of the help we get from Providence will help with that but again it’s fresh guys who are hungry to earn their way into the league and we’re really excited about a couple pieces we have back there. I think one thing we are going to ride with this year is that it’s not an overnight fix and we don’t expect them to head into the first preseason game against Worcester and understand all of this and be dialed in all the way and that’s what we’re excited about as coaches, we have guys who are willing to learn and good teammates and that was our emphasis was to bring in good players and good teammates and we’re thrilled about the guys we brought in and it’s going to be a fun team to coach”
-Wallin on the Mariners young defensive core
Goaltending
The Maine Mariners used the 2024 off-season to address one of their last season’s issues: goaltending. Out of the four goalies who saw time in the Mariners net last season, only one is returning, and that is Brad Arvanitis. The 27-year-old finally found his home after bouncing around for the first two years of his pro career, going 20-10-3 with a 2.71 GAA, .920SV%, and one shutout. I would expect him to see a majority of the starts for Maine this season.
“Arvy was fantastic, he had a really good series against Adirondack too. Dante coming in will provide some depth for us, obviously we like that he’s had some experience in the league and we also like his youth, you see at goaltender position it starts to click for these guys after a couple years for these guys so we’re excited about that”.
Wallin on the play of Brad Arvanitis last year
The Mariners will likely get some help from the Providence Bruins this season as Nolan Maier or Ryan Bischel will likely come down from Providence. Maier spent the last two seasons with the Reading Royals, where he’s gone 27-6-7 with a 3.00 GAA .899SV% and two shutouts in 64 appearances. The 23-year-old netminder also played in 10 games at the AHL Level with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, putting up a 6-2-2 record with a 2.66 GAA and. 896SV%. Ryan Bischel is another option for Maine after signing a one-year deal with Providence after spending the last five seasons at the University of Notre Dame.
Expectations
Heading into the 2024-25 season, Maine is one of the teams in the North that is on the outside looking in after sneaking into the Kelly Cup Playoffs last year as the fourth seed in the North. Maine will definitely feel the effects of a lot of key players from last season, and I don’t think they did enough this off-season to be a playoff team, especially looking at a team like the Reading Royals, who greatly improved their roster from last season. I would expect Maine to be a team that finishes fifth in the North
” I think take the next step, the first thing I texted my wife after the game seven loss was we gotta get over the hump and I think a lot of people will say “oh their a new team it’s not gonna get done”. Our goal remains the same it’s to get to that next level, win a playoff series and continue to climb the ladder as an organization. I don’t think bringing in new faces changes that a lot of the change over was intentional and we brought back guys who we think can help us win and we brought in guys that we feel can help us win and our expections are still extremly high and even for their players thier expectations are high”
Wallin on his expectations heading into the 2024-25 season
