Written by Coach Oly
The Dragons took on the Eagles at home on Friday night and played well considering our small bench. It was an up and down game with some exciting moments. The Dragons had 4 goals from:
1st-Jordan Taupert from Cody Young and Jordan Evans
2nd-Young from Taupert
3rd-Young from Brad Stonnell and Taupert
4th-Evans from Young and Taupert.
We had a fantastic effort from our top line with Young and Taupert getting 4 points a piece. To be a successful team we need more from our other lines as well. We had a few Affiliate Players in the line-up which helped us out. It was another tough loss after playing as well as we did, Dragons 4-Eagles 5.
We headed out to Canmore without our leading scorer and Captain, due to personal reasons, as well as 3 men down so we had our work cut out for us. We fell into penalty troubles right away and pretty much stayed that way all game. It was a well fought battle but we cannot spend the majority of the game in the box and expect to have success. It proved costly tonight as the Eagles had 4 Power Play goals for a 7-3 loss. With an already short roster, it’s hard on our players that have to kill that many penalties and still try to be fresh for 5 on 5 play.
We did get goals and points from the same line as Friday night, our scoring:
1st-Cody Young from Jordan Evans
2nd-Young from Tyler Krecklewich
3rd-Jordan Taupert from Evans
The Dragons headed up to Brooks for a Family Day afternoon game and the final regular season match-up with the Bandits. Bandits outscored us in the first period and we headed to the locker room down 3 goals. We came back and battled back with a few points in the second period. About 5 minutes into the period, Chad Hurtubise scored our first goal from Kreklewich and Stonnell; Cody Young closed the period with a short-handed goal from Hurtubise and Stonnell (4-3 for Brooks). The Bandits had 2 goals in the first part of the third period, half way through the period we lost Bishop to a Game Misconduct and Kreklewich to an injury. Brooks scored another 2 goals for an 8-2 final.
We’ve had a tough schedule the second half of the season, the number of injuries has really challenged our bench and our players. It’s tough to see what lines work and don’t work together when there’s so much inconsistency in the line-up. It’s difficult to work on much during practice when we only have 12-14 players on the ice. We’ve had to make some adjustments to our systems and the way we play given the lack of players in the line-up. The players have done a good job making those adjustments and have worked hard. We are hoping to see some guys back in the lineup this coming weekend and look forward to getting the team ready for playoffs.
Photo by Broken Curfew Photography
