Kyle Gustafson has come a long way to his success as a Western Hockey League coach

The Winterhawks have won back-to-back Game 7s on the road to reach West finals

Kyle Gustafson, the first-year head coach of the Portland Winterhawks freely admits that this season started out as a developmental year — not a time when Portland’s perennially successful junior hockey franchise would be back in the Western Conference finals.

This was a team that had made its predicted playoff push to the WHL’s West finals last season behind a veteran crew and was welcoming a lot of young replacements to town.

“Early in the season, there was a premium on development before team success,” he said Thursday. “The development piece was going to be everything. We had to get them adjusted to the league.

“Then we got to about Christmas and started rolling a little bit. Then we just took it day by day.”

The young team, sparked by a small group of experienced veterans, continued to improve. Team president and General Manager Mike Johnston has always been outstanding at drafting solid prospects and his youngsters continued their improvement throughout the season.

Johnston, you remember, surrendered the coaching job to long-time assistant Gustafson last summer. He picked the right man to continue the franchise’s tradition of developing players and winning hockey games — even in “developmental” seasons.