Auditions for a spot on the top line begin today

Everyone looking for duty with Moller and Santorelli

Steve Ewen, The Province

August 23, 2007

Their training camp opens today, but the campaigning to ride shotgun with Oscar Moller and Mark Santorelli on the Chilliwack Bruins top line actually began months ago.

"In the year-end meetings last season, there were a lot of guys who felt they could do that job this season," laughed general manger Darrell May, whose team officially begins its second campaign, and its search for a replacement for the since-graduated Josh Aspenlind, this morning at Prospera Centre.

"I think there are 20 guys right now who would love to be doing it. And I think it's going to be a pretty open audition."

Aspenlind and Santorelli spent much of the season flanking Moller. The trio scored 83 goals combined; the entire rest of the Bruins totalled 86 in the team's 25-40-5-2 initial WHL season.

Aspenlind, who is trying to land a job in the Detroit Red Wings system as a free agent this season, did much of the mucking and grinding on that line. That could be the type of player the Bruins are looking for to succeed him alongside Moller, 18, and Santorelli, 19.

"I think we'll probably want somebody who can turn the puck over for those guys," said May. "And I think we've had a fair number of guys last year who could step in and play that type of role. I think it's a role that can come from within. I don't foresee us needing to find that guy on the [trade] market."

Winger Ken Petkau, who anchored Chilliwack's second line last year with 24 goals in 55 games, does have the necessary gumption to fill that type of duty, but May admitted he liked how Petkau, 19, brought secondary scoring a season ago.

May didn't rule out it being speedy rookie Ryan Howse, Chilliwack's first-ever draft pick, but admitted, "we don't want to put too much pressure on him as a 16-year-old, although he does have the tools to contribute this season."

May does figure that 18-year-old rookie Jadon Potter will be somewhere in the top two lines as well, although at 5-foot-9 and 170 pounds it's debatable whether he could perform the same corner work that Aspenlind did for Moller and Santorelli.

"He's a pretty exciting little player," May said.