‘We’re a favorite’: How the Wichita Thunder built an ECHL playoff contender
It’s been a long time, 12 years to be exact, since general manager Joel T. Lomurno has been this excited about Wichita Thunder hockey in April.
Since the franchise played for a league championship in 2012 and 2013, Wichita has had just two playoff runs — with both fizzling out at the end of the season with first-round exits.
That is, until this year’s team won 11 of its last 15 games, including a 3-game road sweep of Tahoe, to catapult itself to home-ice advantage in the first round of the Kelly Cup playoffs as the No. 2 seed in the Mountain division.
So when playoff hockey returns to Intrust Bank Arena at 6:05 p.m. Saturday for Game 1 of a best-of-7 series against the Tahoe Knight Monsters, no one will be more giddy than Lomurno, the team’s GM since 2008.
“My wife didn’t know who I was this weekend because I was such a happy person,” Lomurno quipped. “Excitement is the word because this isn’t a team backing its way into the playoffs. We’re going in hot with home-ice advantage and this feels better than any time we’ve made the playoffs since (2013). Everyone is fired up.”
This season’s success in Wichita has been the payoff from the front office’s belief in head coach Bruce Ramsay, an affable bench boss affectionately known as “Rammer” but also one who had missed the playoffs in three consecutive years entering this season.
Given another chance to prove himself as the right man for the job, Ramsay placed his trust largely in a returning core of players from last season. Combine the help from first-year assistant coach Travis Clayton, another former Wichita player whom Ramsay called a “Godsend,” and the steady influx of talent from its affiliation with San Jose, and Wichita tied for the most wins (41) this season since joining the ECHL in 2014.
“They put their faith in me and I’m deeply appreciative of that,” said Ramsay, who also led Wichita to 41 wins in 2020-21. “I’ve really enjoyed my time here in Wichita, so nothing was more urgent to me than having a successful year this year. We’re definitely happy with what we’ve accomplished so far, but we’ve still got work to do.”
With so many players back after experiencing last season’s disappointment, there is no shortage of opinions on what led to a 14-win improvement.
“We had some guys in here last year who were really more stat-oriented than team success and that makes it hard for everyone to pull in the same direction,” said goaltender Trevor Gorsuch, who has been in Wichita since 2023. “I know we are individuals with careers, but it still comes down to the team and everyone working together with the same goal. So when you have guys playing selfishly and worrying about their own goals, it really creates a rift in the locker room. So this year having that different culture and everyone pulling in the same direction is huge. I think everyone here realizes that if we all have success, then that means we’re going to have individual success, too. And that’s allowed us to move forward.”
That cohesion has led to an offensive explosion for Wichita, which has four of the top-11 point scorers in the ECHL — Peter Bates (78, No. 4), Michal Stinil (77, No. 5), Jay Dickman (73, No. 8) and Kobe Walker (66, No. 11) — with the seventh-best offense (3.44 goals for per game) in the 29-team league.
All four were key players from last season’s group, a returning core that also included Dillon Boucher, Gorsuch, Tyler Jette, Nolan Kneen, Mitchell Russell, Declan Smith, Jake Wahlin. Impactful newcomers have included defenseman T.J. Lloyd, forwards Nolan Burke, Joe Carroll and Luke Grainger and goaltender Roddy Ross.
“The most important thing is our compete level is just through the roof with this group,” Ramsay said. “And that’s what you have to have in order to have the success that we’ve had. Every shift, every period, every game, these guys play hard for each other. There’s definitely more of a family atmosphere and these guys genuinely care about each other.”
Everyone inside the organization seems to agree that this is the best Thunder team of the past decade.
It’s the first time Wichita holds home-ice advantage in the playoffs since joining the ECHL and the Thunder are 5-1 against first-round opponent Tahoe, including a 3-game road sweep just this past week to close out the regular season.
“This is the best hockey we’ve been playing since I’ve been here,” Gorsuch said. “But we know playoff hockey is a completely different animal that’s going to take a different type of mentality. It’s about who keeps playing well and who wants it more. Coming off that 3-game sweep definitely puts us in the right mindset though.”
And for the first time in a long time, Lomurno is dreaming of a deep playoff run.
“We’re not just happy to be here. We’re a top favorite to go far,” Lomurno said. “We can win with our offense, we can win with our defense, we have the toughest guy in the league in Boucher. It’s an easy team to root for. Hopefully our fans in Wichita realize that the season isn’t over. It’s just getting started.”
Wichita Thunder playoff schedule
Game 1 — 6:05 p.m. Saturday at Intrust Bank Arena
Game 2 — 6:05 p.m. Sunday at Intrust Bank Arena
Game 3 — 9 p.m. Wednesday, April 23 at Tahoe Blue Event Center
Game 4 — 9:30 p.m. Friday, April 25 at Tahoe Blue Event Center
Game 5* — 9:30 p.m. Saturday, April 26 at Tahoe Blue Event Center
Game 6* — 7:05 p.m. Tuesday, April 29 at Intrust Bank Arena
Game 7* — 7:05 p.m. Wednesday, April 30 at Intrust Bank Arena
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