It was difficult to tell which was the last-place team in the Alberta Junior Hockey League when the St. Albert Steel hosted the Drayton Valley Thunder.
The Thunder, cemented in the north division basement with five wins prior to playing the seventh-place Steel, battled back from deficits of 2-0 and 3-1 en route to a 4-3 overtime decision Sunday.
Assistant captain Reed Linaker summed up the debacle.
"Pretty awful," he told the Gazette outside a disappointed Steel dressing room at Performance Arena. "They came in here and definitely gave the boot to us."
The Thunder dominated territorial play, outshooting the Steel 47-21 by period margins of 13-4, 18-10 and 11-6 in regulation time and 5-1 in OT.
"We've got to be a lot better than that," Linaker said of the 13th straight game the Steel were outshot. "We had a lot of passengers tonight and it ended up costing us."
Linaker, 19, opened the scoring on a penalty shot 39 seconds into the contest. The all-star centre also set up Taylor Fraser's tap-in marker with the Steel shorthanded at 6:57.
The Thunder cut the lead in half at 14:43 by outworking the Steel around the net, as Jarid Hauptman slid the puck underneath Rhys Hadfield.
At 5:06 in period two, Tanner Labbe's blast from the top of the face-off circle sent Thunder starter Zach Weissbach to the bench after facing seven Steel shots. Weissbach's replacement, Joseph Quattrocchi, stopped all 14 shots directed his way.
A pair of goals 14 seconds apart by Tyler Helton in the middle of the period knotted the score. Helton salted away a juicy rebound at 11:36 with the Steel outmanned in front of their net. After the ensuing face-off the Thunder rushed the puck into Steel territory with ease and Helton floated a backhander past Hadfield.
Before the period ended, Linaker just missed redirecting Spencer Pommell's shot on the power play.
In the third, Jesse Altheim was penalized four minutes for high sticking a player in the chops at 8:29. During the lengthy power play the Thunder tested Hadfield only twice.
With less than six minutes to play, Thomas Ward-Cardinal was checked awkwardly into the boards in the Steel end and skated off the ice hunched over favouring his shoulder. The status of the team's top-scoring defenceman and power play quarterback for tonight's tilt against the Camrose Kodiaks in St. Albert was unavailable at press time.
With 2:29 left in the third, Luke Madill was penalized for interference against Linaker in the slot. For most of the power play the Steel went with five forwards but they did little offensively.
In the three-on-three extra period, Hadfield was peppered with shots before Jordan Thomas darted across the crease and deposited the puck in the top corner with 58 seconds to go. After the goal Hadfield swung his stick with disgust at a post and bolted off the ice while his name was announced as the Steel's player of the game.
"Haddy stood on his head. He played great again," Linaker said.
The OT loss was the first following eight straight victories after regulation time, including two in shootouts. With the point the Steel (17-11-0-1) are 19 in front of the Thunder (6-23-0-4) for the last playoff spot in the north.
The result also left the Steel three back of the sixth-place Sherwood Park Crusaders (17-13-0-4) and five behind the fifth-place Lloydminster Bobcats (20-14) with five games in hand on both teams.
"You've got to flush this game right out of your head," Linaker said. "We've shown we're definitely a good team. We've played with some of the best teams in this league. We've got to go home and completely forget this one and come practice hard Tuesday and work hard for the next three games," Linaker said.
Stormed over
The Steel started the weekend with a 3-0 loss to the fourth-place Grande Prairie Storm (19-11-0-3), another team they are chasing in the standings with four games in hand. Because of a scheduling conflict the game was staged in Leduc. Attendance was 351.
Outshot 40-30 overall, the Steel gave up goals during a 40-second span late in period two. The Storm added the insurance marker with 1:19 to play.
"They're a bigger team and they definitely intimidated us a bit. We were pretty soft it seemed at times," Linaker said. "We were definitely there until the very end. They got a couple of lucky bounces for goals and we just couldn't seem to find the net. We had a lot of chances, we just couldn't bury them.
"Haddy was just unbelievable yet again. He's been our best asset so far this year."
The shutout loss was the Steel's second this season.
"Every team is going to get shut out. Every team is going to lose a game. You just need that willingness to bounce back. We still had to come out here [against Drayton Valley] and we came up short," said Linaker, tied for third in team points with 30 in 20 games.
The previous weekend the Steel fell 2-1 to the AJHL champion Spruce Grove Saints (26-3-0-3) in St. Albert and edged the Kodiaks in Camrose 3-2 in OT.
"Coming off a split against Spruce and Camrose was definitely a high. You want to keep building off that. Obviously the loss against GP sucked but a win [against the Thunder] would've helped. Now we've definitely got to regroup. We've got three tough games coming up and we definitely need to take those," said Linaker, who ranks second in Steel history in career goals (69), assists (82) and points (151 in 127 games).
After tonight's game against Camrose (19-12-0-3), the host team for the 2011 Royal Bank Cup, the Steel travel to Fort McMurray for two games against the second-place Oil Barons (23-10-0-1) this weekend.
ICE CHIPS: Sunday's attendance was unavailable but it looked to be around the 300 mark. In the Nov. 26 game against the Saints, attendance was announced at 210 on $5 Fridays. Last month's $5 ticket promotion for Friday home games will continue for the rest of the season.
