The St. Paul Canadiens Junior B hockey team had another successful weekend, picking up two more wins in NEAJBHL play to increase its winning streak to eight straight.
On Friday night it was the Vegreville Rangers who travelled to St. Paul to take on the surging Canadiens.
The home team jumped out to a quick start, scoring four unanswered goals in the opening period of play. Tristan Buchta, Jalael Abougouche, Mikael Beaudoin, and Bryton Beattie all found the net for St. Paul in the first.
“Obviously we’re playing a very good hockey club that’s not far behind us in the standings,” head coach Joe Young said about Friday’s game. “We just talked before the game that a big key was our start. Luckily we had a good start, because we really had to battle them there in the third to get that win.”
The Rangers were able to climb closer in the second with two goals of their own, making it a 4-2 game heading into the third.
The team from Vegreville again came out strong in the third, starting off the period with two goals and tying up the contest. From there, however, the Canadiens pulled away. Dyson Roy scored a goal at the 10:34 mark, assisted by Kristopher Trach. Ryley Wozniak scored the insurance goal on a power play as the final seconds ticked away, earning the Canadiens a 6-4 victory on the day.
“The guys are showing really good composure right now,” Young said. “It’s usually tough when you get up four to nothing and then other team ties it up, but with the group of kids that we have, we are able to win those close ones this year.”
The Canadiens hit the road on Nov. 22 for a game against the Frog Lake T-Birds. By the time they mounted the bus for the return trip home, the team from St. Paul had racked up another 5-0 win.
“We never take anything away from those guys,” Young said of the T-Birds. “They played us strong the first game. We just wanted to go in there and have a strong defensive effort and work hard in our own zone. We knew we were going to get the opportunities offensively – it was just a matter of how many we were going to get beyond the goalie.”
There was no scoring by either team in the first, but St. Paul opened things up in the second with goals by Beattie and Wozniak.
St. Paul kept their collective foot on the gas in the third, racking up three more goals in the frame. Abougouche, Darrell Stranger and Wes Thompson were each credited with goals in the final period of play.
According to coach Young, the eight-game win streak that the team is currently enjoying is not something that they focus on.
“Quite honestly I don’t really think about it,” he said. “What you’ve done in the past doesn’t really mean anything. Obviously we’ve been on a good run here, but it’s not really talked about in the room, or between the coaching staff.”
Another big weekend of hockey looms in the distance, with upcoming matchups again the Vermilion Tigers and the league-leading Wainwright Bisons. Saturday’s matchup should be a big one, but the coach is still taking things one game at a time.
“We don’t look too far ahead,” Young said. “We do play Vermilion on Friday, which is an extremely important game for us, and then we’ll get to that big game on Saturday night.”
