The second and most important season for the St. Albert Merchants starts Friday.
The fourth-place team in the west division of the Capital Junior Hockey League faces off against the Edmonton Mustangs in the best-of-three qualifying series.
“Everything is completely different now. Intensity is much higher. Emotions are running a lot higher,” said right-winger Bryce Sturm of the opening playoff round. “In the regular season you’re competing to be in the playoffs and now you’re competing to win the championship, so everyone is a lot more fired up and pumped up. They want to go out there and get that goal and do whatever it takes to help their team win because when everything clicks and everything goes right as a team, then you win the series and you move up and up.”
Game one starts at 8 p.m. at Akinsdale Arena and game two is 8 p.m. Sunday at Bill Hunter Arena.
Game three, if needed is 8 p.m. Monday in St. Albert.
The winner plays the Beverly Warriors or North Edmonton Red Wings in the best-of-five quarter-finals.
Beverly (29-9) and the Red Wings (26-9-3) received first-round byes as the top two teams in the west standings.
The Mustangs (15-21-2), who were docked points from three games due to an ineligible player and the slap on the wrist dropped the team from fourth to fifth, and the Merchants (14-19-5) split the season series with the home teams winning. Scores were 2-1 Sept. 23 and 4-1 Jan. 16 for the Mustangs (3.82 GFA/4.61 GAA) and 6-5 Nov. 30 and 2-1 Feb. 1 for the Merchants (3.58 GFA/4.39 GAA).
“The Mustangs are actually a lot like us,” said Sturm, who scored two third-period goals to rally the team past the Mustangs in the first win.
“They’re a pretty high-scoring team against us so it’s mainly about us protecting our goalie and back him up and get in front of the shot lanes. We also have to keep continuing to put pucks past their goalie in order to beat them because they’re a good, fast team,” Sturm added. “It’s going to be a tough first round, but the last couple of months have been going good with the group of guys that we’ve got so it’s going to turn out to be a really good series.”
After the Christmas break, the Merchants are 5-7-1 and in the last six games are 3-2-1.
“We started off pretty good (4-1) and then we kind of went into a little slump (0-4-3 from late October to early November) but the past couple of months we started finding ways to start winning games and ways to start helping back up our goalies in terms of playing just good solid defence and not just our defence but our offensive players, too,” Sturm said. “All together we’re supporting each other a lot better. We’re finding ways to put the puck in the net more and doing a bigger role in helping out our goalies, too.”
The first-year Merchant was the team leader in goals (22), power-play goals (eight) and points (42) in 37 games with Peter Corrigan (18-22-40 in 36 games) as his main sidekick.
“Pretty much a good majority of the year I’ve been playing with Peter Corrigan just because that’s what the coach (Zach Rodda) has found where my best chemistry is and I agree. I’ve played probably some of my best hockey with him and lately in the past couple of games it’s been me, Peter and Sam Milner (7-11-18 in 31 games) and things have been clicking really well for all three of us points-wise and it’s helped us help the team out a bit more,” said Sturm, 20, who spent two seasons with the Creston Valley Thunder Cats (23-32-55 in 80 games) in the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League after playing with the midget AA St. Albert Blues in 2015-16 and St. Albert Source for Sports Crusaders 2014-15.
“It’s also pretty easy to gain that many points when you have a good defensive crew behind you and you have good offensive forwards that you’re able to play with that can produce around the same amount of points,” said the Paul Kane High School graduate.
Jets vs. Flyers
The series between the third-place Morinville Jets (20-16-2) and sixth-place Stony Plain Flyers (15-21-2) gets underway Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Ray McDonald Sports Centre.Game two is Monday at Glenn Hall Centennial Arena and game three, if needed, is Tuesday in Morinville. Start times are 8:30 p.m.
In league play, the Flyers (3.11 GFA/5.05 GAA) won the first meeting 3-1 Sept. 30 In Morinville and the Jets (4.08 GFA/3.58 GAA) took the next three games by scores of 3-2 in overtime Dec. 7 in Stony Plain, 2-1 Jan.12 on home ice and 6-2 Jan. 23 on the road.
Brett Dubuc of the Jets led all CJHL scorers with 42 goals and 83 points in 37 games and Lee Gadoury finished tied for ninth with 55 points in 36 games.
