The St. Albert Steel got back on track in the playoff race by derailing one of the teams they are chasing in the north division.
Six different players scored and Rhys Hadfield stopped 41 shots as the Steel halted a four-game losing streak in Wednesday’s 6-4 decision against the Lloydminster Bobcats in front of a tiny crowd of 234 at Performance Arena.
“At some point you have to stop the bleeding so it was definitely really big that we got a win tonight,” said captain Mike Giese. “Obviously dropping four games in a row is unacceptable so we knew we had to come out with a big effort tonight. We had to get the two points.”
The third win in 10 games lifted the Steel (23-19-2) into a sixth-place tie with the Sherwood Park Crusaders (21-8-6). The teams battled Friday in Sherwood Park, but the score was unavailable at press time.
The Steel’s road record was 9-11-1 after losing five out of six games over a 12-day span.
“It was disappointing for sure. Obviously you always want to get wins,” Giese said.
In three of those defeats, the winning teams scored empty net goals to seal the deal. The only blowout result was the 7-3 setback in Drayton Valley against the last-place Thunder (8-35-6) Jan. 5 to kick off the road swing.
“There were a couple of games on the road where we came out with really good efforts and deserved better fates than what we got,” Giese said.
Last week the Steel played well enough to win in losses of 4-2 against the Olds Grizzlys (20-21-6), 4-1 against the Alberta Junior Hockey League champion Spruce Grove Saints (38-4-4), the number-one ranked team in the Canadian Junior Hockey League, and 4-2 against the Bobcats (27-20-4).
“The last few games we’ve come out with good efforts but just didn’t get the results in the standings,” Giese said.
The Steel have struggled mightily in their bid to gain ground in the north, despite a long stretch of games in hand on every team.
“We definitely wanted to get points with those games in hand,” Giese said. “We still have a few games in hand so we’re still in the hunt.”
The best the Steel can do is to finish fourth for home-ice advantage in the opening best-of-five playoff round. Skating into the weekend the Bobcats and Grande Prairie Storm (27-17-4) shared fourth place with 10 more points than the Steel.
Since the arrival of the transplanted Fort Saskatchewan Traders to St. Albert, the Steel have never opened the playoffs at home and have yet to win a series. They finished seventh in 2007/08 (24 wins, 52 points) and sixth twice in 2008/09 (29 wins, 64 points) and last year (24 wins, 53 points).
After tonight’s game against the Saints in Stony Plain at 7 p.m., the Steel have 14 games remaining, including seven at home, before the playoffs start.
“Now is the time to start treating the rest of our games like playoff hockey and come out with a 60 minute effort every night and get ready for those big games in the post-season,” Giese said.
In their first home game since Jan. 3, the Steel pumped in three quick goals en route to period leads of 3-1 and 5-1. It was 6-1 in the third when the Bobcats rallied with goals on the power play at 6:26, even strength at 6:52 and shorthanded at 9:59.
The Steel also killed off a penalty to Baxter Niziol for unsportsmanlike conduct in the late stages of the game while clinging to a two-goal lead.
“We need a little bit of a killer instinct when we get up on teams instead of letting them back in to make it a close game. We have to finish them off earlier,” Giese said.
The Steel got outshot for the umpteenth time this season. The lopsided margin was 41-25, including an 18-11 spread in third as the Bobcats basically camped out in St. Albert’s end for the whole period.
“We had a pretty good effort for the first 40 minutes for sure,” Giese said. “We obviously made it a little too exciting at the end but it was good to come out with the two points.”
Hadfield (23-16-2, 3.62 GAA) let in a couple of strange goals during the contest, but buckled down when things got dicey. He is the league leader in games played (42), goals-against (140), shots faced (1,447) and saves (1,307) and is second in minutes played (2,319).
Goal scorers were Jordan Kochan (second with the Steel; fourth this season), Taylor Fraser (24th, with an assist going to Hadfield), Thomas Ward-Cardinal (seventh with the Steel; 10th this season), Derek Bacon (22nd), Niziol (sixth) and Tyler Parks (sixth). Ward-Cardinal, the game star with three points, and Bacon connected on the power play. Brandon Fagerheim added two assists.
ICE CHIPS: Giese, 20, was scheduled to play in his 200th AJHL game, all with the Steel, Friday in Sherwood Park. His career stats line is 24 goals, 58 points and 362 penalty minutes. His 18 points in 44 games is a season high.
All-star centre Reed Linaker has sat out the last three games with a lower body injury. He is third in team scoring with 49 points in 32 games and is the top goal producer with 25. Fraser and Bacon are the Steel’s co-leaders in points with 50.
The Steel are hosting a pond hockey game Monday, starting at 6:30 p.m. at Lacombe Park Lake, weather permitting. Everybody is welcome to attend.
Next weekend the Steel entertains the second-place Fort McMurray Oil Barons (36-11-1) on Friday (tickets are $5) and Saturday at 7 p.m.
