The odds are stacked against the St. Albert Steel in their opening playoff round against the Fort McMurray Oil Barons.
“Obviously we’re going to be the underdogs,” centre Reed Linaker said after Sunday’s 7-2 loss to the Oil Barons at Performance Arena to wrap up the Alberta Junior Hockey League regular season. “They’ve got a really skilled hockey team but if we can stick to our guns and play solid defensively, hopefully we can get an upset in the first round.”
In the north division the sixth-place Steel finished 23 points behind the third-place Oil Barons with 13 fewer wins.
“They’re higher in the standings than us so we have to go balls out,” said right-winger Taylor Fraser. “They’ve got a lot of talent so it’s going to be a good test for us. We’re a bigger team but they come at you with their speed.”
Games one and two go Friday and Saturday at Thickwood Heights Arena at 7:30 p.m.
“They’re really good in their home rink. They’ve got good fan support, which is an intimidating factor. It’s a huge difference. It’s like they have a sixth man. It gets really loud, especially when they get an early goal,” Linaker said. “No matter what happens with the crowd we’ve got to go in there and bring our game to them and just hope for the best.”
Game three is 7 p.m. Monday at St. Albert. If needed, the Steel host game four Tuesday at 7 p.m. and game five is 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Fort McMurray.
In the season series the Oil Barons beat the Steel five times by a combined score of 32-8. They also dropped a 6-3 decision Friday in St. Albert as Sean Reilly, an affiliate goalie with the junior B Fort Saskatchewan Hawks, was razor sharp in stopping 40 shots in his Steel debut with the AJHL’s third-worst defensive team.
“That win was a confidence booster,” Linaker said.
In last weekend’s dress rehearsal for the playoffs the Steel were determined to set the tone for the upcoming series.
“We went into these two games wanting to send out a physical message that we can play tough throughout the series,” Linaker said.
Both games were chippy, penalty-filled affairs as the Steel showed a willingness to bang bodies.
“We’ve got to take the positives out of that win, which was our physical play. We really ran them,” Fraser said. “When we’re playing physical we’re a better team so hopefully we’ll stick to that in the playoffs.”
The officiating was also below par by AJHL standards, especially in Sunday’s contest.
“Today the ref [Jonathan Spurgeon] wasn’t allowing that type of game. We kept trying to force it to let us play that game but we’re not going to win against the ref, right? It’s his game. We just took stupid penalties more or less today,” Fraser said.
The Oil Barons scored three times on 12 power play chances. The Steel went one-for-eight as Linaker deposited a rebound past Joey Quattrocchi in the opening minute of the third period. The 37th goal of the season was also his league-leading 16th goal on the power play.
After a scoreless opening period the Oil Barons scored two of their three goals in the middle frame with the man advantage. After facing 42 shots a shell-shocked Chad Ketting (7-8-3, 3.93 GAA) spent the third period on the Steel bench. His teammates mustered 12 shots on net in the first two periods. Overall the shot count was 55-24 for the Oil Barons, who were playing their third road game in as many days.
“The game got away from us but the result was meaningless really,” Linaker said. “This weekend it’s a new chapter.”
The win by the Oil Barons, coupled with a 5-0 loss by the Sherwood Park Crusaders against the powerhouse Spruce Grove Saints (52-4-1-3) that same day, gave Fort McMurray third spot and a playoff date with the Steel. They were destined to place sixth regardless of Sunday’s outcome.
“It was a little less on the serious side but we still had team intensity,” said Fraser, 18. His second goal in two games, and the 16th of the season, cut the deficit to 4-2 at 9:03 in the third.
In the last 10 games in league play the Steel went 3-5-1-1 and the Oil Barons were 5-4-0-1. Since the Christmas break the Steel are 8-10-1-2.
“We’ve improved vastly since Christmas. We’ve got a solid goaltender in Ketting back there. We’ve also got a bit of secondary scoring now,” said Linaker, 18, who finished seventh in the AJHL scoring race with 81 points in 58 games.
“It’s a new look team, really,” added Fraser. “Not necessarily as far as guys on the team but just the way we’re bringing our game to the table with more effort. We know our roles more or less right now.”
ICE CHIPS: The Steel lost the services of Spencer Pommells for the first round after the team’s sixth-highest scorer (15-22-37 in 39 games) injured his shoulder in a needless fight against Ben Lake of the Oil Barons in Friday’s third period. The Steel had the game in hand leading by three when the skinny centre dropped the gloves with 3:53 to play.
