The Crusaders had a rather forgettable road trip to B.C this past week.
In the Vancouver road trip Sherwood Park went 1-3 over the week with a 3-2 win over Prince George, and three straight losses to Langley, Coquitlam and Victoria.
“We’re Learning,’ said GM and Head Coach Brennan Menard when asked on his teams performance over the week.
“We’ve played some really good third periods, and we’ve blown a few leads so it shows that it’s there, we are just a really young team. We are continuing to dial in our daily habits on the ice and off the ice.”
The week would start with a matchup with the Prince George Spruce Kings for Sherwood Park’s first game of the BCHL showcase. The Cru’ would take no time getting the scoring started as forward Quincy Supprien would score his fourth of the season on a left wing rip that would whip by the Spruce King’s netminder Colin Reay to give the Crusaders a 1-0 lead.
The remainder of the first period would be mainly back and fourth, coming into the second however Prince George ties it up. Forward Ben Vreugdenhil would score his first of the season to tie it up at one a piece. Much like the opening frame there would be no further goals scored in the period.
Coming into the final period the Spruce Kings would take the lead as Mason Loewen would also get his first notch in the goal column just 59 seconds in to make it 2-1. After that however it was all Crusaders hockey as Braeden O’Keefe would get his 5th career multi-goal game, as he would bury two, including a goal that was waved off, to give the Crusaders the 3-2 win in their first game of the BCHL showcase.
The Crusaders final game of the showcase would see them taking on the Langley Rivermen. The Crusaders would find themselves down 2-0 not even a full ten minutes into the game as Rivermen forward Aaron Reierson would score twice in the opening ten to give Langley the early two goal lead. Just over the halfway mark of the first period Quincy Supprien would get his second goal in just two games to cut Langley’s lead to just one. The Rivermen would the score twice again when Zachary Benayon and former Crusader Christian Chouha would both score to give Langley the 4-1 lead. Max Ly however would score with just 3:18 left in the period to cut the lead down to just two goals. Langley would end up regaining their three goal lead as Zachary Benayon would get his second of the period with just 30 seconds left on the clock to make it 5-2 Langley.
Second period would open up with Langley getting its 6th goal of the game just three minutes into the period as Ben Davis would get his first of the campaign to make it 6-2 Langley. Just two minutes later however, Braden O’Keefe would get his third goal in two games to cut the lead down to three goals. Then in the late stages of the period newest-Crusaders Gabriel O’Brien would get his first career goal to making once again a two goal game heading into the final frame.
Any momentum the Crusaders were trying to carry into the third was lost as Tanner Winegard would bury one home on the Powerplay just three minutes in, while Aaron Reierson would get his Hat-trick goal just three minutes after that to put this game out of reach 8-4. The Crusaders would get on the board one more time before the period was over as the captain Stevie Grumley would score on the powerplay to make it an 8-5 final score.
Looking to shake off the loss from the previous night the Crusaders would hit the road to take on the Coquitlam Express. Things would start off shaky in this one as well, when Nolan DuPont would bury the rebound on the powerplay to give the Express the lead just before the halfway marker of the period. The lead would only last for a couple minutes though, as Stevie Grumley would laser one past the glove of Express goalie Ryan Parker to tie it up 1-1. In the late stages of the period however, Cole Bieksa, son of Vancouver Canucks legend Kevin Bieksa, would bury his second of the season to re-gain the two goal lead for Coquitlam.
Second period was off to a much better start when Braeden O’Keefe scored on a penalty shot just two minutes into the period to tie it back up at two a piece. The Crusaders would eventually take the lead off a beautiful powerplay rip from Gage Brandon for his third of the season to give Sherwood Park the 3-2 lead.
Coming into the third however, the Express would tie it up just nine minutes into the period as Luke Pfoh would bury his first of the season, to tie it up once again. Just four minutes later Coquitlam would get the eventual game winner when Nolan Flynn would find the back of the net for the forward’s second of the year, 4-3.
The final game of the road trip would see the Guy’s in Green head to the Island to take on the Victoria Grizzlies. The opening period of the final game of the road trip would be a period of “firsts”, as Sullivan Martin would get his first career goal just under 90 seconds into the game to make it 1-0. The Grizzlies would respond back as Mas Silver would bury his fourth of the year to tie it up 1-1. The Crusaders would end up taking the lead back in the late stages of the period as Divyne Apollon would score to give the big-man his first career goal and the 2-1 lead heading into the second.
Victoria would tie it up just eight minutes into the middle period when Niklas Karjalainen would bury one on the man-advantage to make it evens on the score once again. Gleb Semenko would give Sherwood the 3-2 lead three minutes later as he would get his fourth powerplay goal of the year. After that however it was all Grizzlies hockey, Landon Mackie would get his fifth of the season, Max Silver would get his second of the game and Owen Warnick would also score, all three goals scored within six minutes of each other to give the Grizzlies the 5-3 win as there were no goals in the third.
“Sometimes when you teach our style of play, you get scored on” added Brennan.
“That happened a few times over the last couple games, and when we discussed at the beginning of the year with our coaches we were fully aware that can and will likely happen and it may cost us points as well and it did. We don’t like losing , we understand that it’s a process to learn how to play with confidence. This will help us be better in the big picture.”
The Crusaders look to shake off the three game losing streak as they host the Brooks Bandits on Friday, Oct. 24th and the Vernon Vipers on Saturday the 25th start a three game home stand.
