With return to finals the goal, KC Mavericks take 13-game streak into home series
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- KC Mavericks hold a 27-7-1 record and a league-leading 12-game win streak.
- Coach Tad O’Had has built sustained success since 2019-20, reaching Kelly Cup final.
- Returning veterans, leadership and rising attendance drive the team’s title pursuit.
They play on ice, but the KC Mavericks are hotter than ever.
Kansas City’s professional hockey team sits atop the ECHL standings with a 27-7-1 record and 12-game win streak. The streak is the longest in the league this season and is creeping up the charts as one of the longest in the history of the ECHL — the third tier in the NHL’s organizational hierarchy of leagues.
But the Mavericks are no flash in the pan; their string of victories has been built on the foundation of success in recent seasons.
Since the arrival of head coach and general manager Tad O’Had after the 2019-20 campaign, the franchise has steadily increased its win total. The Mavericks reached the playoffs in 2023 and the following season made it all the way to the Kelly Cup finals, the league’s championship series, for the first time in franchise history.
O’Had, 45, is a former player and career hockey coach and trainer. He came to the Mavericks after more than a half-decade as an assistant and associate head coach with another ECHL squad, the Florida Everblades.
He has since become the winningest coach in Mavericks history, boasting two Mountain Division Championships, one Brabham Cup (awarded to the team with the most points in the standings at season’s end) and an ECHL-record 29 road wins, a mark set during the team’s run to the Kelly Cup finals.
The Mavericks also reached the Western Conference finals last season, falling to the Toledo Walleye (the team they beat to win the conference the year prior).
Winning in hockey’s minor-league system can be difficult because of roster turnover due to call-ups and signings with different leagues, O’Had told The Star this week. But the Mavericks brought back the most returning players in the league this season. Those more veteran players understand the team’s system and what it takes to perform at a high level in pro hockey.
“First and foremost, it’s the leadership,” said O’Had, who credits the NHL’s Seattle Kraken and AHL’s Coachella Valley Firebirds — the Mavericks’ affiliate organizations — for identifying talent, and his own assistant coaches for helping to develop those newcomers.
“Most every player in that room has been served as a captain collegiately or professionally. And so when we go through hard times, we’ve got 20 guys in there that were leaders at some level, and that really matters.”
The leaders on the team can ball, too. Defenseman Marcus Crawford, one of the longest-tenured Mavericks, is having a career year. He’s leading the league with 36 assists to go with seven goals. Crawford and O’Had were selected to the ECHL All-Star Game, which was played earlier this week.
Both remember the days when the Mavericks, who play home games at Cable Dahmer Arena in Independence, were an afterthought among Kansas City’s pro sports teams.
“When I first got here, not everybody knew about the Kansas City Mavericks,” O’Had said. “It was kind of like the best kept secret, but our community has embraced us.”
“When I first came, the crowds were a little light,” Crawford, 28, said. “Every year seems to keep getting better and better and more consistent throughout the year. It makes a big difference.”
Indeed, the Mavericks have succeeded in captivating local hockey fans, selling out Cable Dahmer Arena throughout O’Had’s tenure. Another sellout was expected for Saturday night’s home game against the Tahoe Knight Monsters.
The visiting team plays a fast-paced style of hockey, focusing on possession, pace and physicality, O’Had said. That approach shows up on both the ice and scoresheet, where four Tahoe forwards have already recorded double-digit goals this season.
“We have a very high, offensive, fast-paced forward group, and so we’re able to utilize the whole bench,” O’Had said. “Hockey is a physical sport, and we need to finish our hits. We need to be fearless, have physicality. And then there’s only one puck out there, and we want to possess it. We want to control it.”
The Mavericks’ style of play has helped the organization attract new fans, too.
“I think it’s always fun when you can introduce someone that maybe doesn’t know the sport very well,” said forward Jack Randl, a Nebraska-Omaha alum who ranks second on the team with 14 goals and 15 assists.
“Usually people get hooked right away when they come to their first game, or they always say, ‘Oh, that’s so fun. That was awesome.’ So, yeah, it’s definitely cool to be able to share that with new people.”
Having a successful team also helps bring new fans to the fold.
“They’ve been spoiled over the years with the Chiefs and the Royals and everything,” O’Had said. “The last three years we’ve had a lot of success here. We’ve been doing some incredible things, and so it’s nice that we’re just building that hockey culture, that hockey market.”
When O’Had first met with Mavericks owner Lamar Hunt Jr. (who has owned the team since 2015), Hunt’s focus was on making the playoffs. O’Had responded that the playoffs should be the standard, and that has become the case in Kansas City. The goal now is winning a championship.
The Mavericks have gotten as close as they can to lifting the Kelly Cup and have ambitions of doing so this season. O’Had said he doesn’t talk to the team about winning; that takes care of itself if they execute the game plan, he said.
“We kind of talk about (consistency) a lot,” Crawford said. “Staying in the moment and not getting too ahead of ourselves. Because every team is coming in to play us. Everyone wants to beat the Mavericks, so we’re ready to play every game. We know what’s expected. We know our standard.”
Said O’Had, “We want to bring our best game, and when we’re consistent and we’re playing the way that we’re capable of, we can do damage.
“When I got here, we would lose recruiting matchups versus teams in our Mountain Division ... (The Mavericks’ current success) is six years in the making. It’s a lot of hard work. I attribute it to the great ownership and the great president (Mike Cukyne) we have allowing us to do that. But it’s fun because people are taking notice.”
The Mavericks have back to back games against the Monsters this weekend; Friday’s game begins at 7:05 p.m., Saturday’s at 6:05 p.m.
