Entertaining start: Walleye a skilled squad that lacked toughness

The Toledo Walleye proved to be quite a catch in their first season.

With 12 sellouts at the new Lucas County Arena, 234,220 fans turned out to see the new ECHL team. The Walleye posted a 35-30-7 record to earn a playoff berth in their inaugural season.

Toledo opened the postseason with a 7-2 win over top-seeded Charlotte, but the Checkers rallied with three straight wins. Charlotte ended the Walleye's initial season with a 5-4 overtime win in North Carolina on Sunday.

"It was a really successful season because we achieved our No. 1 goal of making the playoffs," Walleye coach Nick Vitucci said. "This organization is first class, and the support we got from the fans was unbelievable."

Putting together a consistent 60-minute effort was the team's biggest bugaboo. That inconsistency led to uncertainty about which Walleye team would show up each night.

Yet this Toledo team possessed a core of high finesse, creative scorers. The passing ability, which generated odd-man rushes and beautiful one-timers was matched by impressive individual scoring efforts. The Walleye could score in bunches and were often an entertaining product.

But close checking, grinding efforts were not the norm, and a lack of overall hitting disappointed some. A sometimes suspect defense allowed teams to roam freely in the Walleye zone forcing rookie goalies Jordan Pearce and Alex Richards to play beyond their years. Allowing frequent breakaways also could be a point of frustration.

Vitucci said his team got outworked too often.

"Sometimes we lacked emotion and consistency. That was very frustrating," Vitucci said.

He said he would like to keep about nine players. But he also will be

looking for "a different type of player" next year.

"We need more toughness. We need hard-nosed, physical guys who make it miserable on the opposition," Vitucci said.

After a 7-4 loss to Cincinnati in the second preseason game last October, Vitucci's quote following the exhibition game proved prophetic: "Poor defensive zone coverage sums the majority of our problems up tonight. There was a lack of focus and execution. There was a lack of wanting to out-duel the opponent."

Vitucci made several moves, including bringing in former Storm grinders Scooter Smith and Adam Keefe. But the loss of defenseman Ryan Stokes and forward Adam Hobson to AHL callups robbed the team of grit and leadership.

Although the team did not possess a physical style, it had more than a handful of players that were not afraid to drop the gloves.

In the first third of the season, Toledo posted winning streaks of eight and six games to move into first place in the American Conference North Division. Toledo was 23-13-4 on Jan. 17.

But from Jan. 22 to March 13, the Walleye lost 15 of 23 to fall into last place with a 31-26-6 mark. The team backed into the playoffs and lost eight of its final 11 games.

Toledo finished third in the North Division with a .535 winning percentage. The Walleye gave up 20 more goals than they scored in the regular season.

Toledo had the third best power play record in the league, scoring on 22.1 percent of its chances. But the Walleye were second to the bottom in the penalty kill (78.9 percent). In the postseason, the team lost two straight games to the Checkers, going 0 of 12 on the power play. The Walleye could not score with the man advantage in overtime in the season finale, and Charlotte ended Toledo's year with a power play goal.

"In the big picture, there are a lot of positives to look back on," Vitucci said. "We provided fans with entertaining hockey."

Contact Mark Monroe at:

mmonroe@theblade.com

or 419-724-6354.