Sailors welcome back Kelly
Nathan Kelly is back in the lineup for the Port Colborne Sailors. Photo by: ALEC MURRAY.
The Port Colborne Sailors were not the same without Nathan Kelly.
The talented forward went down with a knee injury Oct. 1 and missed 12 games, only three of which the Sailors won, and one of those was by forfeit.
“You can look at our numbers since he’s been out of the lineup, and quite frankly, it hasn’t been pretty,” Sailors assistant coach Chris Goulet said. “We have some good players who can put pucks in the net but the driving motor of our offence I’ve always said was Nathan Kelly.”
Kelly had 12 points in eight games at the time of injury and seemed poise to have his best season in his final year of junior eligibility.
“You can see the speed the skill, the smarts, all that stuff,” Goulet said. “Whenever you lose that in your lineup it sucks. Is it an excuse with why we’ve played negatively? No. But it’s certainly a great addition to have him back.”
Kelly returned to the lineup last week and collected a goal and two assists as the Sailors topped the Welland Junior Canadians.
“It felt great,” Kelly said. “I couldn’t stand being out, especially when we were struggling. It sucks to watch. I could tell we were playing well, we just weren’t getting bounces.
“It was nice to get out there and get a win and see how it felt.”
Kelly was on crutches for two weeks followed by another two weeks in a brace before starting physiotherapy.
“It was pretty tough. It feels pretty good but still not in the game shape kind of thing,” he said. “Still got some work to do to get back to full health probably.”
Injuries are no stranger to the 20-year-old Smithville native, who also missed significant time in his rookie season.
“It is frustrating. The season is only so long and it sucks having to miss some every year,” he said. “The goal is to stay healthy and have a good year and hopefully the team has a good year and we can do some damage in the playoffs in my last season.
“We have a good team, well coached, we have good systems and once we get (Brendan) Grenville back and start rolling, I think we’ll be pretty good.”
Goulet has high hopes Kelly can stay healthy.
“We need to make sure we’re keeping him healthy and he needs to hold up his end and stay healthy and doing the right things off the ice, working out, eating well, all that stuff.
“We need him.”
The Sailors, 9-10-3, followed up their win over Welland with a 3-0 loss to the St. Catharines Falcons, but Goulet isn’t discouraged.
“Three weeks ago the effort level wasn’t there consistently, and quite frankly we were getting shelled in a couple of games with shots,” Goulet said. “In the St. Catharines game, we played hard in our own end, the offence wasn’t there, but the positives were we were working hard as a group, the effort level was there.”
The Sailors have a quiet week with only one game, a road encounter Saturday in Caledonia.
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