Arthur Gordon broke a tie midway through the first period to propel the visiting Sherwood Park Crusaders to a 2-1 victory over the Bonnyville Jr. A Pontiacs on Wednesday night.
Arthur Gordon broke a tie midway through the first period to propel the visiting Sherwood Park Crusaders to a 2-1 victory over the Bonnyville Jr. A Pontiacs on Wednesday night.
Even though the Pontiacs lost the game on the scoreboard, they controlled most of the play outshooting the visiting Crusaders 35-18. The dominating Bonnyville attack included holding the visitors to six shots in the second period and just a single shot in the third.
"We played a team that I don't believe man for man has the skill or the talent that we do, but it just goes to show you that if you work hard and play together as a team, like Sherwood Park does, you are going to accomplish success in this league," said Bonnyville head coach and GM Rick Swan.
Penalty troubles cost the Pontiacs, as they took a slew of undisciplined infractions at inopportune times.
The first call, just 2:34 into the game, had Pontiacs forward Adam Wilson sent off for tripping. Just over a minute later the Crusaders Cole Gammer took a feed from Cameron Brezinski and shoveled it past Bonnyville goaltender Joey Desrosiers. The powerplay marker, at 3:56, gave Sherwood Park the early advantage.
The Crusaders continued to apply pressure on the Pontiacs, jumping out to an 8-3 lead in the shot column in the games first six minutes. It took Bonnyville seven minutes before they got a faceoff in the Sherwood Park zone, but once they broke through the momentum shifted.
At 10:24 Bonnyville's Kyler Hehn and Steenn Pasichnuk broke up the left wing with speed. After a couple of passes back and forth Pasichnuk picked the top right corner with a wrist shot, banking it off the cross bar to tie the game.
By the time the 12:00 mark had hit the score was 1-1 and the shots were even at nine apiece.
Minutes later, after a great Bonnyville scoring chance, the Crusaders broke out of their zone with speed. Ryan Kruper found Daniel Wray, who chipped a pass over to Gordon, who beat Desrosiers.
The period ended on a sour note for the home squad as Wilson was sent off with a four-minute double minor for butt-ending at 18:59 of the opening
"It is hard to gauge sometimes where the standard of play is from the referees perspective. Is he calling everything? Is he calling some stuff? Is he letting some stuff go?" Said Swan. "I think that the frustration that our guys had was from focusing on the uncontrollables and as coaches we tried to settle them down a little bit and get them to focus on the task at hand."
Although they found themselves shorthanded for the opening three minutes of the second frame, the Pontiacs were able to kill of the penalty allowing only a single shot on goal.
The big penalty kill seemed to give Bonnyville momentum as they carried the pace of the game for the next few minutes. The team set up in the Crusaders zone working a cycle behind the net, throwing a ton of rubber on Sherwood Park net minder Tommy Nixon.
At 13:48 Bonnyville right-winger Mitch Fritz jumped on a loose puck in front of Nixon. After a couple of whacks he stuffed it past the Crusaders keeper and into the back of the net. Then, for the second night in a row, the hometown Pontiacs had a goal disallowed. This time the referee interpreted Fritz poking at a loose puck as slashing the goaltender and sent him off with a minor penalty, which infuriated the Bonnyville sniper.
"I guess you could call it a slash, but I think the stick hitting the pads sounds worse than what actually happened there," said Swan. "The puck was loose and Mitch was able to poke it though. The stick made contact, it made a loud sound and of course if you are not in the right position that is the call you are going to make."
Bonnyville killed off the penalty along with one more in the remainder of the period. Over the course of the second period the Pontiacs managed to successfully kill 6:59 in penalties.
"We were just being aggressive. Not trying to do too much. Just having a good gap on the blue line so they are not breaking in easily and just getting the puck out," said rookie defenseman Brinson Pasichnuk, who played on the Pontiacs penalty kill unit.
The onslaught continued in the third period with the Pontiacs continuing to pummel Nixon with pucks. Bonnyville outshot the Crusaders 9-1 in the final frame but were unable to register the tying goal.
Bonnyville came close in the final minute of the game as defenseman Ryan Black got four point shots through the crowded goal mouth but missed wide left on every shot.
"Penalties killed us tonight," said Pontiacs defenseman Gen Bryshun. "We can't expect much after being so undisciplined. We have to be smarter out there. The work ethic was there but we have to play smarter."
The competition only gets tougher for the Pontiacs as they will entertain the league-leading Camrose Kodiaks on Saturday night at the RJ Lalonde arena. The night will be a special occasion, as the team will be honouring the military personnel from CFB Cold Lake. A ceremonial puck drop will take place and a military band will play the national anthem, before the game gets underway at 7:30 p.m.
Swan said about military appreciation night, "It is just a privilege for us to be able to honour our guys. People forget that we are in a war here. Their guys risk their lives. For us to even have the privilege to honour these guys is something that we take great pride in. We want to give them a great night of entertaining hockey and give them a way to get away from their everyday work and stress."
