The Sherwood Park Crusaders had a tough weekend road trip losing both games, 4-2 to the Trail Smoke Eaters and 6-2 to the West Kelowna Warriors.
Friday’s contest against Trail would see the Cru’ come out hot dominating the first five minutes of the game. All that momentum would be stopped however as Trail forward Gabriel Bugeaud would snap one glove side on Filip Vavro to put the Smoke Eaters up 1-0 eight minutes into the game. Cash Carter would then extend Trail’s lead to 2-0 as he would bury his eighth of the season to double the Smoke Eaters lead. Christian Kim would then capitalize on a penalty shot making a nifty move to the backhand to give the forward his team leading 15th of the season and to give Trail a commanding 3-0 lead heading into the second.
Trail would extend its lead to four goals ten minutes into the second as Erik Pastro would score on the powerplay to make it 4-0 Smoke Eaters. The Crusaders would finally get on the board late in the period as Joseph Sinclair would get his team leading 22nd goal to make it 4-1 heading into the final frame.
There would only be a single goal scored in the third as Bode Sampair would snipe one home shorthanded to cut the lead down to two. It would not be enough to mount a comeback however as the Crusaders would end up losing 4-2 to the Trail Smoke Eaters.
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Sherwood Park was looking to shake off the loss from the previous night as they faced the top seeded West Kelowna Warriors. Much like the game against Trail Sherwood park would be down in the first as Alexandre Lallier would score just 31 seconds into the game to put the Warriors up 1-0 early.
The Warriors would end up extending the lead four minutes into the second period as Olivier Chan would score on the powerplay to out West Kelowna up 2-0. The Crusaders would get on the board in the second as Conner Broadhead would get a step to the net off a nice pass from Kent Moors and he would bury his third of the season to make it a 2-1 game heading into the third frame.
The Crusaders would come out hot in the final period as Brant Romaniuk would score on the powerplay to tie the game up 2-2 just a minute and 24 seconds in the period. That would be the final goal the Crusaders scored however as the Warriors would explode for offence as Natan Ethier, Liam Nilsson, Ruslan Jamaldinov and Alexandre Lallier would all score in the third to cap off a dominant third from West Kelowna and to give the Warriors the 6-2 win.
The Crusaders now head into the weekend on a two game losing streak as the take on the Trail Smoke Eaters on Friday and the Blackfalds Bulldogs on Saturday.
