The St. Albert Steel extended their winning streak to a season-high four games with back-to-back one-goal victories last weekend.
Taylor Fraser's team-high 13th tally was the game winner in Friday's 2-1 decision against the Lloydminster Bobcats at Performance Arena.
The next night in Bonnyville, Thomas Ward-Cardinal fired the equalizer from the blue line with 51 seconds remaining in regulation time and defenceman Jordan Abt scored 34 seconds into overtime to give the Steel a hard-fought 2-1 win.
Rhys Hadfield was credited with 41 saves at home and 22 on the road as St. Albert was outshot in both games.
"We're really happy with the weekend. It was a real solid effort by everyone that was dressed, starting in goal with Rhys; he was very good," said Greg Parks, the Steel's head coach and general manager. "Our team defence is real solid right now, which is something that has been our nemesis a little bit in the past."
Winners of six of their last seven games, the Steel (14-8) surrendered one goal in each of the last three victories and twice have given up a pair over that span.
"Everyone as a group collectively has picked up their defensive game and it's showed as a result. We're playing some pretty good hockey right now," said forward Spencer Pommells. "We would like to keep the shots down a little bit less but we've been able to put the puck in the net when we needed to."
Despite being outshot in six straight games the Steel won five and lost once.
"They might be outshooting us but I don't think they're getting more scoring chances than we are," Parks said. "We're doing a real good job in keeping them in the perimeter. They're getting frustrated a little bit and they're firing pucks from anywhere."
Hadfield (14-7, 3.36 GAA) is a big reason why the Steel are the eighth-best defensive team in the Alberta Junior Hockey League. He ranks among the top goalies in games played (21), minutes (1,089), shots faced (623) and wins.
"Our goaltending has been very good since day one," Pommells said. "It's good to see us win those tight games when our offence isn't going. We're missing Linny [Reed Linaker], plus a couple of guys up front are having a tough shake right now putting the puck in the net."
Another sign the Steel are for real was their performance without Linaker (10-14-24, 13 games) in the line-up. The all-star centre was playing for Canada West, the fourth-place finishers at the fifth annual World Junior A Challenge in Penticton, B.C.
"It was an opportunity for guys to step up and show what they can do so to win four out of five without Reed shows a lot of what kind of character we have in the locker room," Parks said. "Bonnyville was a great example. After they scored [in period two] we kept pushing back and everything stayed really positive. Thomas got a great goal and then for us to win in OT showed a lot of character."
It was the sixth Steel victory decided after regulation time and the fifth in the five-minute three-on-three OT format.
"We played a pretty solid game. We wanted to weather the storm first and we were able to do so. After we got down 1-0 we were on them for a while. Cardinal, who has been playing well for us, got a big goal at the very end when we pulled our goalie. When overtime started we were able to put it away early," said Pommells, who combined with Derek Bacon to set-up Abt's OT winner against the second-place Pontiacs (16-5-0-5). "It was nice to get out of Bonnyville with another win. That's two out of three there."
The Steel rallied from an early deficit against the Bobcats on Brandon Fagerheim's power-play marker with one second left in period one. The Steel newcomer also assisted on Fraser's tiebreaker. In five games since joining St. Albert from the Victoria Grizzlies, the product of the Edge School academy of Calgary has two goals and five assists.
"We didn't play that well against Lloyd. We came out a little flat," Pommells said. "We regrouped in the first intermission and we were able to come back and win one of those defensive games."
Gaining ground
The Steel march into tonight's rematch with the Bobcats in the Border City two points back of fifth-place Lloydminster (15-12) in the north with five games in hand. They also trail the fourth-place Grande Prairie Storm (15-8-0-3) by five points having played four fewer games.
The Steel and Sherwood Park Crusaders (12-11-0-4) share sixth place, with St. Albert enjoying five games in hand.
"It looks like we're a lot worse hockey team than we are, just because we have four or five games in hand on some teams. We just need to keep working and sticking to the game plan. We'll keep climbing up the standings if we can take advantage of those games in hand," Parks said. "The way the schedule has worked out has been pretty good for us. To be closer to the bottom, it makes everyone buy in a little bit more and no one gets comfortable. If we were sitting second, third or fourth it would be pretty easy to get into your own program a little bit."
On Friday the Steel host Bonnyville (tickets are $5) and Saturday's visitors are the Canmore Eagles. Game times are 7 p.m.
"It would be nice to keep this little streak going and see where it can take us. Hopefully we can move up the standings. Obviously we're not sitting where we want to be," said Pommells, 20, the Steel's third-leading scorer with 25 points, on eight goals and 17 assists in 22 games.
He expects the good times will continue to roll.
"It's definitely a fun time to come to the rink now but at the same time we're not going to grow complacent. You can see it in the leadership group. The younger guys are starting to buy in as well. We might not have the most skilled club out there but everybody is buying into working hard. It's starting to pay off but we're definitely not satisfied," said Pommells, a natural centre who skated last weekend on left wing on the line with Bacon (11-17-28, 22 games) and rookie Jeremy Olinyk (6-6-12, 21 games).
