A slow start by the St. Albert Sabres didn’t bode well for the bantam AAA team Wednesday at Akinsdale Arena.
The Sabres (3-4-3) were shut out by the Maple Leafs (2-7-1) by a score of 2-0.
A major reason for the loss was the overall effort by the team, according to captain Brett Smythe.
“It wasn’t our best effort, that’s for sure. We had a few passengers and we need everyone going on our team every game,” said Smythe.
While the Sabres boast one of the best goals-against averages in the league, they currently rank on the lower half of the spectrum in goals scored. There are no Sabres in the top 20 in points in the entire league. Assistant coach Rob Parrotta believes these statistics could improve with the growth and development of their power play, which has experienced some difficulty.
“Our power play needs to get better. We need to find a way to get pucks on the net,” said Parrotta. “In a game like this if you get a goal on the power play, maybe it changes the momentum of the game but we failed to achieve this.”
After getting worked over in the first period by a seemingly fresher squad, the Sabres managed to find a trace of their usual selves for a stretch in the third, which helped balance out the shot totals. While the improvement throughout the course of the game was nice to see, Parrotta believes the game has to be played start to finish, not just when it’s convenient.
“You can’t just show up for 10 minutes of the game and expect to win. Their team is too good. They have too much pride to let that happen,” said Parrotta.
The Leafs scored once in the first. Their second goal came in the middle frame. They outshot the Sabres 25-20 as Nikolai Farrus posted the shutout.
The Sabres currently occupy third place in the Nitro North division, a statistic that has goalie Patrick Dea reasoning that the problem on the ice Wednesday wasn’t fundamentals.
“Our heart and passion wasn’t good enough. We didn’t battle enough in the first two periods,” said Dea. “In the third we got more excited and thought hockey’s fun so let’s just go out there and play and see what happens.”
Looking to rebuild from their previous performance, Parrotta stated all aspects of the game will have to improve to remain competitive in a very tight league.
“Everyone is good and if you don’t show up to work every game, you are going to have performances like we did and they dismantled us in every aspect of it,” said Parrotta.
The Sabres are back on the ice tonight against the Canadian Athletic Club (2-5) at 8 p.m. at Akinsdale. They are 1-1-1 at home and 2-3-2 away from St. Albert.
