The Crusaders had a busy weekend, taking on the Brooks Bandits and the top-seeded Blackfalds Bulldogs.
The Crusaders would ultimately lose to their rivals, the Bandits, 7-3, while defeating the Bulldogs with a 5-3 win.
“I thought the team played well despite the loss,” Commented GM and Head Coach Brennan Menard.
“There were a lot of things that we did in the game that, over the course of tim,e have the potential to translate into wins. Too often, we did what was right but came out on the wrong side of the battle. When you look at how many of these moments break out in a game, we had the upper hand in far more, and those are just small wins that lead to winning.”
The opening period of the opening game of the weekend for the Crusaders would be pretty back and forth between the two clubs until Brook’s forward Harry Ahlberg would score his third of the season to put the Bandits up 1-0 with just four minutes left in the period. Just two minutes later, the Bandits would strike again as Mathis Dufor would Jack Good on the Powerplay to give the Bandits a 2-0 lead heading into the second.
The Bandits would continue their offensive success in the second as Nicholas Addy would put home his second of the season to give the Bandits a strong 3-0 lead just three minutes into the middle period. Just five minutes after the Bandits’ third goal, they would get their fourth as Connor Paronuzzi would bury the loose puck in front of the net on the powerplay to give Brooks a 4-0 lead. The Bandits would then get their fifth in a row as Frantisek Albrecht would put home just his second of the year to then make it 5-0 with just two minutes left in the second. The Crusaders would finally get on the board just 54 seconds later asa loose puck battle in front would sneak past Brook’s netminder Zach Zaharah to give Joseph Sinclair his ninth on the season and to make it a 5-1 game going into the third.
Coming into the third period, the Crusaders would get their second straight goal of the game just past the ten-minute mark of the period when Conner Broadhead would score his first as a Crusader to cut the Bandits’ lead down to three, 5-2. However, any hope of a comeback would get stopped pretty quickly as Jack Good would get his second of the game with just over three minutes left in the third, 6-2. The Crusaders would get another one late in the Game as the assistant-captain Cooper Sharp would get his second of the season to make it 6-3. With just 43 seconds left, the Bandits would get one more as the rookie Alexie Zhukov would score his eighth of the season to give the Bandits the eventual 7-3 win.
Saturday’s matchup saw the Crusaders head to Blackfalds to take on the number-one-seeded Bulldogs.
Unlike the previous day’s game, the Crusaders would strike first, however, not until the second period as the captain Stevie Grumley would put home his team-leading tenth of the season on the powerplay, to give the Crusaders the 1-0 lead. The Bulldogs, however, would be quick to respond when Joey Melo would put home a centering feed from Luke Dahlen in the late stages of the second to tie the game up 1-1.
Heading into the final frame, the Crusaders would regain the lead just under 90 seconds into the period when Joseph Sinclair would also get his tenth of the season to put the Crusaders up 2-1. And just like a Seinfeld episode, the Crusaders would double-dip the chip as Braeden O’Keefe would score his eighth of the campaign just a minute later to give the Cru’ the 3-1 lead. The Crusaders were not done there as Joseph “scar-face” Sinclair would get his second of the period, off a beautiful tic-tac-toe feed from line-mates Braeden O’Keefe, and Bode Sampair to put the Crusaders up a commanding 4-1 lead just three minutes into the period. Then Sherwood Park Defenseman Erik Kald would get in on the action as he’d bury one in the slot from another slick pass from Bode Sampair to make it a 5-1 game for the Cru, all before the seven-minute mark of the last period. The Bulldogs would eventually get back on the board as Mathew Croxall and Jared Langdon would both score in the later stages of the period, but it would be too-little too-late as the Crusaders would sneak away from Blackfalds with the 5-3 win.
“It was a good win for the team,” Commented Brennan Menard when asked about his team’s performance on Saturday.
“With a ton of injuries and injuries to key players like (Quincey) Supprien and Jude (Bray), you can think that there is no reason for us to win that game, but we went out and did what we had to do to get the win done. I thought we played a really good hockey game, played the way that you need to to win.”
The Crusaders look to carry that momentum into B.C as they hit the road to take on the 14-2-2 West Kelowna Warriors on Friday, November 21st, and then the 9-6-2 Salmon Arm Silverbacks on Saturday, the 22nd.
