BONNYVILLE - The Bonnyville Jr. A Pontiacs will need to get their head in the game if they hope to improve their chances of making it past the first round of playoffs.
"We’re in the hole and we have to battle our way back," captain Joal Ray told the Nouvelle.
Despite having home ice advantage for games one and two of their series against the Drayton Valley Thunder over the weekend, the Pontiacs failed to gain the momentum they needed to capitalize with a 1-0 overtime loss on Saturday, followed by a 6-2 defeat the following night.
“That’s the importance of playoffs, is you have to be dialed-in right from puck drop. Now we have to go into Drayton Valley to stay alive. The great thing about being in fourth place (in the league) is we get home ice advantage, but if you don’t utilize it, it doesn’t really matter if you have it,” exclaimed Pontiacs head coach Rick Swan following Sunday night's matchup at the R.J. Lalonde Arena.
Giving it their all in game one
The Pontiacs gave it all they had in game one of their best of seven series against the Drayton Valley Thunder.
To kick-off the AJHL playoffs on Saturday, Feb. 29, Bonnyville hosted their first-round opponents for a game Swan described as "one that really hurt."
"The guys put in everything they could for 64-minutes and we lost in overtime," he described, adding the team "felt good about everything they accomplished, they left everything on the ice and sometimes when you work so hard, jsut like life, you don't get what you want and it hurts."
After a gruelling 60-minutes of gameplay neither team found the back of the net, and the game went into overtime with the visiting Thunder scoring, clinching a 1-0 victory.
Their heart wasn't in it
“I think (Saturday) night’s game we were more mentally prepared to go into. (Sunday) we let them get up on us early and let it spiral before we decided to kick it into gear and get back into the game. It was a too little too late kind of situation, but (Saturday’s) definitely hurt with that overtime loss because we thought we had the chances to win there but we couldn’t capitalize,” noted Ray.
The Pontiacs were once again bested on home turf, falling to the Drayton Valley Thunder 6-2 on March 1.
Drayton Valley had control over the first period, netting four of their six goals.
The Thunder kept their momentum going in the second, scoring two powerplay goals within 11-minutes of the frame.
After watching their opponents net six points, the Pontiacs' fourth line, made-up of Chayce Schmidt, Justin Stathopoulos, and Ethan Sundar, "created the energy that (the team) needed,” exclaimed Swan.
It "was because of that line and their hard work," that the local team finally found success. There were less than two minutes remaining in the second period when Lucas Thorne shot one over the Thunders' netminder, followed by a second goal 60-seconds later by Bruce MacGregor.
However, Ray described the team's effort as "too little too late."
“You can’t play 30-minutes at the end of a hockey game after you give up six goals against anybody," Swan added. "Every shift matters, every goal matters, every hit matters in a seven-game series, let’s reflect the importance of something bigger than yourself, and that’s our 20-year-olds and our great fans here.’”
It wasn't the loss that stung the most, but the lack of heart the team put into the game, said Swan.
“After the first period, we have a 20-year-old captain that’s the RBC ambassador that’s won the Inter Pipeline Scholarship for citizen and character saying ‘I’ve been here for three years and this is how you guys want me to remember and our fans to remember our team and what we’re all about,’” described the head coach. “That’s what the message was and the passion that’s required, especially in payoffs. If you don’t think the game that means anything, think about our captain who has to lose his mind on behalf of the 20-year-olds to say ‘all I want you guys to do is sell out and be at your very best.’”
“If you can look at yourself in the mirror and know that you gave it everything you could, than you’re okay and you can check yourself off, but if you can’t, then it’s got to be about making sure that you put in that performance for the next game,” added Swan.
Ray agreed that Sunday's matchup wasn't exactly what the Pontiacs had been hoping for, but they intend to turn their luck and attitude around as they hit the road for games three and four.
He continued, "It's a tough place to play. It's a smaller arena so we will be going in there looking to get on them physically, and we definitely need to put a few more past this goalie. We got him a little shaky there at the end (of Sunday's game) and hopefully we can continue that and put a few past him."
They will be hitting the ice in Drayton Valley on Wednesday with game four the next night also on enemy territory.
If necessary, they will be back at the R.J. Lalonde Arena for game five starting at 7 p.m. on Saturday, March 7.
“Now we have a hole to dig ourselves out of… Then we get to come back here on Saturday (March 7) for game five and then we get to really show… our great fans in Bonnyville, that we are a heck of a lot better than what our performance was,” expressed Swan.
