The LaSalle Vipers biggest addition could be behind the bench.

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The biggest addition for the LaSalle Vipers this season could be behind the bench.

Anthony Iaquinta takes over as head coach of the Vipers from Chad Shepley, who stepped down for family reasons. Iaquinta will make his regular-season debut behind the LaSalle bench on Wednesday when the Vipers open Western Conference play in the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League against the London Nationals at the Vollmer Complex. Game time is 7 p.m.

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“It feels good,” the 36-year-old Iaquinta said. “It’s great meeting a bunch of new kids and you can feel the excitement.” 

Iaquinta spent six seasons with the Lakeshore Canadiens and won five division titles with one season wiped out by the COVD-19 pandemic. He also guided the squad to provincial Schmalz Cup titles in two of the last three seasons. Milan Dobric, who was an assistant in Lakeshore, also joins the staff.

“It’s an honour for us to have (Iaquinta) as our coach and Dob’s as an assistant,” Vipers’ captain Owen Findlay said. “Hopefully, they can carry it on here and we’re grateful to have them.”

Junior B is not new to Iaquinta, who spent three seasons as an assistant coach in Leamington under Tony Piroski before heading to Lakeshore.

“I think the skills level is a little better and you have to do things a little different,” Iaquinta said. “We’ve got a lot of personalties that probably want to advance in hockey and want to be the guy and it’s managing players.”

A LaSalle native now living in Windsor, Iaquinta likely could have made the jump a lot sooner, but said it was hard to walk away from Lakeshore after so much success.

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“I definitely thought about it way back when,” Iaquinta said. “It’s something I wanted to do, but Lakeshore was so good to me and it was such a good time that it was never, ‘I have to get out of here’ kind of thing.

“This summer, I put some thought into it and thought this was something I might want to do and I was fortunate to get the opportunity. I’m ready for a new challenge and the other part is it’s now or never. I’m getting older and talked to my family and said let’s give it a shot now.”

The Vipers return three of their top four scorers from a year ago in Nicholas Graniero, Kyle Greene and Adriano Tonin. Connor Chartrand, Brendan Gouin, Jaksen Ward, Stefan Djordjevic and Jak Thiessen also return.

Julian Gignac and Zach Vaillaincourt, who both played in Lakeshore, move over along with  Matteo Vilardi, who was a Windsor Spitfires’ under-18 draft pick, and Joseph Gingras. Both played for the Windsor AAA U18 last season.

“Our forwards look pretty good and the pieces we’ve added, we’re excited about, too,” Iaquinta said.

Findlay, who was fifth in team scoring last year, and Brady Hamlin, who played junior A with Leamington last season, will anchor a young defence. That group features Windsor’s Kieren McNally, who played midget in Mississauga last year and was an OHL pick by Sarnia, and Brody Jones, who played for Windsor’s under-18 team last year and was an OHL pick by Oshawa. Bryce Belleau, who played junior C in Essex last season, and Noah Caswell, who was under-18 draft pick by the Spitfires, round out a young, but promising unit.

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“They’re pretty physical, so hopefully we can channel that to win some one-on-one battles and they’re pretty good at making the first pass,” Iaquinta said.

Dante Bertolin, who posted a 9-5 record in 16 games last, moves into the No. 1 role in net this season.

“From what I’ve seen of Dante, he’s more than capable,” Iaquinta said.

Heading into his fourth and final season of junior hockey with the Vipers, Findlay said the new coaching staff has brought a whole different look to the team.

“Everything’s changed from the power play to the penalty kill,” Findlay said. “It’s a completely different view on everything, but there’s an energy in the room.

“It’s my last year, so it’s do or die and, even as the captain, I have to earn everything now. It’s a new coach, new staff and nothing is given to me and I have to go out and earn it every night.”

The addition of Iaquinta has raised expectations to some degree and that’s not something the first-year head coach is shying away from, but he realizes it’s a process.

“You always want to set expectations,” Iaquinta said. “If you’re not trying to win, I don’t know why you’re doing it. Obviously, there’s more to it than that, but we’re going to try and win as many hockey games as possible.

“Our team looks pretty solid. It’ll be a learning curve, but the hope is you’re winning in February, March and April and not necessarily worried about September, October and November.”

jpparker@postmedia.com

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