Sherwood Park had just one game on the schedule this weekend, hosting the Vernon Vipers on Friday night.
Despite a strong effort, the Crusaders came up just short, falling 5–4 to the Vipers.
The Vipers would open the scoring twice in the opening ten minutes of the game as Vernon’s captain Deagan McMillan and forward Artyom Khaydarov both found the back of the net to put Vernon up 2-0 all within the first ten minutes of the period.
The Crusaders would be quick to get their first goal of the game in the second as Joey Sinclair was able to capitalize on the man-advantage two minutes into the middle frame to make it a 2-1 hockey game. Vernon would re-take their two goal lead not even a full minute later as Deagan McMillan would bury his second of the game past Crusaders goalie Filip Vavro to make it a 3-1 game under three minutes into the period. Sinclair was determined to try and tie the game as he would bury his second of the game five minutes later to notch the contest at 3-2. Vernon was able to once again re-take the two goal lead when Vipers forward Christian Maro scored at the 14 minute mark of the second period to make it a 4-2 game. Just 58 second later however, Danick St. Pierre would bury his fourth of the season to once again make it a one-shot game, 4-3. Vipers would find the netting one more time before the period concluded as Anthony Nolan would score his first of the season to put the game at 5-3 going into the third.
Only one goal to report in the final period as newest-Crusaders Ryan White would go bar-down on Vipers goalie Oliver Kanat with five minutes left to pull the game within reach once again. However it would be too little too late as the Crusaders would end up falling 5-4 to the Vernon Vipers.
With that loss the Crusaders now make it a three game losing streak as they set to host the Brooks Bandits on Wednesday, February 11th at the Randy Rosen, tickets for the event can be found here.
