Newport Beach native, Jr. Kings alum Wiesner picks up monthly NAHL honor
The North American Hockey League (NAHL) has announced its monthly player awards for the month of September.
The Bauer Hockey NAHL Forward of the Month is Matt Wiesner from the Northeast Generals.
Only players who are nominated by their respective teams are considered for the NAHL monthly awards.
It was an incredible start to the 2017-18 season for the Northeast Generals and Wiesner, a Los Angeles Jr. Kings graduate.
The 20-year-old forward from Newport Beach helped the Generals to a 7-1 record in the month of September. For Wiesner, it was sweet revenge after being on a team a year ago that won just four games. Wiesner led all NAHL players in scoring with 11 points (four goals, seven assists) in the month to go along with a plus-8 rating. That included three game-winning goals during the month and registering at least a point in seven of the eight games.
“Matt is a great leader and player,” said Generals head coach Joe Lovell. “It is great to see the hard work that he put in this offseason pay off. We couldn’t be happier for Matt and look forward to him having continued success.”
“Matt embodies what we are trying to create here, which is an atmosphere of hard work and dedication,” added Northeast GM Bryan Erikson. “His leadership combined with his work ethic and skill has been a big reason for our hot start.”
Wiesner said that last year’s experience with the Generals is constant motivation for his continued improvement and success this season.
“I think that the major changes from last year to this year began in the offseason,” said Wiesner. “The team you see this year was built with a defense-first mentality. We have defensemen that can move the puck and two really good goalies to back us all up. That has enabled us to translate that into offense. We want to be a fast team that plays with a lot of pace and I think we were able to do that in September.
“Personally, I want to prove people wrong. I think any of us who spent time with the team last year understand that we are here to show everyone that we can play hockey and are here to develop and get better. I was pushed around a lot last year, so in the offseason, I put on 15-20 pounds of muscle and that has helped with my speed and stamina. I did all the little things I needed to do to gain some confidence. I think having the experience of playing in the league last year was invaluable coming back this season. We still have 50-plus games to keep proving ourselves.”
(Oct. 4, 2017)
