BRANTFORD -- Jay McAuley has been quite the find for the Whitby Dunlops.
It’s not like coach Mike Posavad didn’t know who he was getting when he added the Pickering native to the roster at the start of last season.
After all, he had coached him with the Bowmanville Eagles nine years earlier and saw how he could produce.
But, he probably didn’t envision McAuley fitting in quite so nicely on the Dunlops’ top line with Ron Baker and captain Peter MacKellar, where he’s become one of senior hockey’s most dangerous scorers.
On Monday, McAuley was the best player on the ice, with two goals and two assists in a 4-4 tie with the Dundas Real McCoys to open the Allan Cup national championship tournament in Brantford.
He scored Whitby’s first two goals, turning an early 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead by the mid-point of the first period, and set up MacKellar for the other two, the final one coming with 1:14 remaining to tie the game for good.
“We know where we’re going to be out there on the ice. We seem to find each other really well and it was clicking again today,” McAuley said of he and his linemates after the game.
Indeed, he found MacKellar parked at the side of the net for the tying goal, leaving the captain with an easy tap in.
“They’ve worked so well right from the first game we put them together last year,” Posavad said of adding McAuley to the mix. “You could just see it was going to click.”
Did it ever.
For each of the past two seasons, all three have finished among the top four in scoring for the Eastern Ontario Senior Hockey League.
This year, McAuley was third in the league with 69 points in 28 games, sandwiched between Baker, in second with 77, and MacKellar, in fourth with 63.
“Oh, it’s really fun,” McAuley said of playing on the top unit, where he’s the youngest at 25. “Playing with them the last two years, they’re the best linemates I’ve ever had, bar none.”
Posavad likes what McAuley brings to the team, at both ends of the ice.
“He’s reliable defensively, he can put the puck in the net, he can make those little passes,” Posavad explains. “It allows Ronny and Mac to step it up and maybe take an extra few opportunities offensively because they know he’s going to be there backing them up.”
The Dunlops will get a chance to avenge last year’s loss in the Allan Cup final on Wednesday at 1 p.m., when they face the Lloydminster Border Kings in the second and final round-robin game.
After that, it’s playoffs, with quarterfinals on Thursday, semifinals on Friday and the championship game Saturday at 3 p.m.
McAuley, like everyone else on the Dunlops, has only one outcome in mind.
“We expected to win it last year and I know they expected to win it the year before and nothing’s changed,” he said. “I would say this is the most focused group of guys I’ve very played with.
“Ultimately, the goal is to win it all.”