Cougar At The Top

One weekend is in the books for the SDHL, and there's a familiar name atop the scoring ranks if you're a Canada West hockey fan. She was often the best player on the ice for the Regina Cougars while she skated for the Saskatchewan-based school, but Killarney, Manitoba's Jaycee Magwood went off this weekend and put herself at the top of the scoring statistics for at least one weekend!

Before we get too deep into celebrating Magwood's scoring prowess, MoDo has only played two games of another long SDHL season. There's a lot of hockey still to be played, but seeing her chemistry with her linemates this early should make MoDo fans smile. Magwood opened the season with a five-point effort against Gothenburg in a 6-0 victory before recording an assist in a 4-3 shootout loss to HV71. It'a a good start, but it needs to remain in place if MoDo wants to challenge for an SDHL championship this season.

In the Gothenburg game, Magwood opened the scoring just 53 seconds into the game on a pass from Lina Ljungblom. 5:06 later, Magwood set up former Canadian Olympian Jennifer Wakefield with a cross-ice pass for the one-timer, and MoDo was off and running. Magwood had a secondary assist on Brooke Hobson's first SDHL goal early in the second period, and added a second secondary assist on Hobson's power-play goal late in the period. 3:56 into the third period, Magwood recorded her fifth point of the game as she set up Ljungblom for her first of the season as MoDo skated to the six-goal victory. For those asking, Ljungblom also had a goal and three assists playing on the same line as Magwood in this game.

Game Two was against HV71 where Magwood had the secondary assist on Ljungblom's second of the season at 7:50 of the second period to make it 2-1 in favour of MoDo. She was also involved in the shootout where she was MoDo's second shooter, but her attempt was denied by HV71 netminder Anni Keisala. When the dust settled, HV71's Mira Jungåker had scored the winner, and MoDo took one of three points for a four-point weekend.

What's good to see, though, is that there seems to be real chemistry between Magwood and Ljungblom as the two players sit atop the leaderboard for scoring in the SDHL. Again, it's very early in the season with players such as Lara Stalder and Petra Niemenen lurking further down the scoring totals, but it's always nice to see a former Canada West player leading the way for at least one weekend!

MoDo will have their hands full against the aforementioned Stalder and her Brynäs squad on Saturday, and they'll follow that up with a Sunday visit to Leksands IF where former Mount Royal standout Anna Purschke and former MRU coach Jordan Colliton await. No one will take it easy on the scoring leaders at any point in the season, but seeing Magwood and Ljungblom working well together on the opening weekend should have MoDo fans giddy.

Congratulations to Jaycee Magwood on an incredible opening weekend of hockey where she officially leads the Swedish pro league in scoring! I'm always happy to see Canada West players succeeding at the professional levels of hockey, so keep your eyes on this space all season long as we track players doing incredible things at all levels of hockey!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!