Stephen Klein made 27 saves to backstop the Bonnyville Jr. A Pontiacs to a 2-0 shutout of the Okotoks Oilers on Saturday night at the RJ Lalonde Arena.
Klein came up huge when the Oilers turned it on late in the game, making 14 saves in the third period en route to his first shutout of the season.
“It was unreal. I am happy just to get that first one out of the way,” said Klein on his shutout. “I was hoping for a big response after (getting pulled) last week and I'm glad that this is the way it turned out.”
Klein and the rest of the Pontiacs were looking to bounce back after dropping a 4-1 game on the road to the Spruce Grove Saints on Friday night.
“There is definitely a little more pressure coming off a loss, but as a fourth year guy that is something you learn to deal with,” said Klein. “Tonight was almost a must win game for us, that is kind of the way we treated it.”
The Pontiacs came out strong controlling most of the play for the early part of the game, pinning the Oilers deep in their own end.
Two misplays by Okotoks goaltender Jacob Suppes almost resulted in a pair of goals for the Pontiacs, as he whiffed on the puck several times with one puck narrowly missing the inside of the left post.
At 15:19 of the first period Tommy Barszcz found a lose puck in the slot and wristed it by Suppes to give the Pontiacs a 1-0 lead.
The Pontiacs added to the lead a minute into the third period when Mitch Fritz took a nice pass from Luke Mahura and beat Suppes to put Bonnyville up by two. Spencer Foo also picked up an assist on the play – Fritz's first AJHL goal.
Okotoks didn't go away without a fight though, turning it up a notch in the third period and pummeling Klein. The Oilers created most of their chances by driving to the net and came close to scoring on several goalmouth scrambles.
“That was really a team effort down low. They were throwing a lot of pucks at the net, especially in the third period,” said Klein. “It was a team effort of tying guys up and I really just had to take away the bottom of the net. I thought the whole team did a really good job on the scrums in front.”
Halfway through the third, the Oilers celebrated what they thought was their first goal of the game, but their celebration was short-lived as the goal was disallowed by the referee for being batted into the net by a glove.
The Oilers pulled Suppes with about a minute remaining but were unable to get any legitimate scoring chances.
“We needed a response like that,” said Pontiacs head coach and GM Rick Swan. “The best response is action and tonight the guys did a good job. I was proud of the guys. It was a heck of a game.”
Swan wasn't surprised by the fight the Oilers put up in the third period noting the Oilers 2-1 win over the defending national champion Brooks Bandits on Sept. 14.
“We know that they have a highly skilled team that can be dangerous. They are really never out of a game, which they showed tonight,” said Swan. “I was happy that we closed things enough to allow (Klein) to be able to see a lot of pucks. He made some good saves; he was solid in net. There was a really great contribution from the guys around him.”
Next on the schedule for the Pontiacs is a trip back to Spruce Grove next weekend to play a pair of games in the AJHL Showcase. Bonnyville will be in tough, with games against Brooks on Friday and Camrose on Saturday.
Swan doesn't think he will have a problem getting his team to focus on playing a “team game” and ignoring all of the scouts that will be in the stands over the course of the weekend.
“It is pretty evident here that we have to play a team game. Once we get a lone ranger mentality here performances happen like Spruce Grove or Sherwood Park,” said Swan. “It is more satisfying to play a team game and hopefully the feeling that they created for themselves tonight is something that they want to get again. We have to remind them as coaches that they are not going to get that unless they play a team game.”
Klein added, “We know going into the showcase that if the team has success we will have individual success and we will get noticed so we are going go into it as a team and hopefully come out with four points.”
