With their families in town for the weekend, the Lloydminster Bobcats were skating toward victory in front of their biggest fans Sunday afternoon at the Hub, at least until a Grande Prairie Storm abruptly intervened.
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Trailing 3-0 after two periods, the Storm scored three goals within five minutes before the midway mark of the third to force overtime and eventually win 4-3 in a shootout.
“We stopped working,” said Bobcats coach Eric Labrosse. “We stopped winning battles, we weren’t moving our feet, we got complacent, and we got what we deserved.”
Including a 5-2 loss to the Bonnyville Pontiacs on Friday night, Lloydminster lost twice at home on the weekend, after winning its previous four Alberta Junior Hockey League games.
“Friday night was a different type of disappointment, where we trailed the whole game and when we had a few chances, we couldn’t bang the puck in,” Labrosse said. “And then, discipline got away from us at the end of that game.
“Both times when we had to score opportunistic goals, whether it was Friday or Sunday, it never happened.”
Grande Prairie’s new goaltender, Hudson Perry, stopped the three Bobcats he faced in the shootout, including the game-clinching save on Raphael Messier.
As his celebratory reaction indicated, the 18-year-old Perry netted his first Grande Prairie win and his maiden victory in five AJHL games this season. The former WHL goalie came from the junior A Drayton Valley Thunder in an AJHL trade last week and made his Storm debut Saturday night in a 5-4 loss at Bonnyville.
The weekend also marked Ty Matonovich’s first two games with Lloydminster. The 20-year-old goaltender from Calgary was acquired last week in a trade with the Saskatchewan league’s Weyburn Red Wings.
In the shootout Sunday, the only goal Matonovich allowed was the opening shot from Cole Penner, a 17-year-old forward who scored 88 points in 40 games last winter with his hometown junior B team in La Crete, Alta.
Penner skated in slowly and fired a quick shot to beat Matonovich on the blocker side.
“He’s a simple player and he gets it done most times,” teammate Max Leduc said of Penner. “Forehand to backhand and forehand again, just under the blocker. I like it. He knew what he was doing.”
On the Storm’s second shootout attempt, Leduc narrowly missed as he tried to slip the puck in on Matonovich’s glove side.
The 19-year-old forward did score with a deceptive shot in regulation, though, to kickstart Grande Prairie’s comeback.
“I think I’m just holding onto the puck an extra second and making sure I’m shooting to score, putting pucks on the net,” said Leduc, who has eight goals and a team-leading 23 points after 20 games this season.
Last year, Leduc was a big part of the Grande Prairie team that swept Lloydminster in the opening round of the playoffs and went on to join the AJHL champion Calgary Canucks as the league’s representatives in the Centennial Cup national championship.
This season has presented early challenges for the Storm (9-10-1), who had lost four of their previous five games before beating the Bobcats (12-7-1).
“A bit of a tough couple of weeks,” agreed Leduc, holding an ice bag post-game. “It’s been kind of a rough year.
“Today, we were pushing through the third, trying to find our identity, just playing hard hockey and keeping things simple.
“Before then, (the Bobcats) were spending a lot of time in our zone, so we just needed to change that, simplify the neutral zone and get pucks in, and start shooting and test this goalie a little bit. We didn’t have a lot of shots the first two periods, but we changed that in the third and ended up getting the win.”
Grande Prairie’s other goals came from Chase Christensen, with a backhander on a partial breakaway, and defenceman Matthew Lesyk, with a shot through heavy traffic.
“It’s hard to assess his performance right now, after a game like that,” Labrosse said about Matonovich. “But, for his first weekend overall, I think he did fairly well. It definitely would have been fun for him to have more support (from teammates) on Friday and today.”
The Storm scored their three regulation goals during a four-shot span, which was precisely the same feat the Bobcats accomplished in building their second-period lead.
Tucker Robertson, Jack Ferguson and Matthew Hikida, respectively, tallied for Lloydminster. Robertson’s sixth goal of the year was his 10th point in the past eight games. Ferguson — on a sharp pass from Messier — scored for the second time in as many games. Hikida, on the power play, potted his 19th point in 20 games. He’s just one point behind team scoring leader Jadon Iyogun, whose two assists Sunday gave him 20 points (10-10) after 17 games.
John MacNeil – Meridian Source
With an assist on the opening goal, Bobcats’ rookie defenceman Xavier Normand recorded his fourth point of the season.
Lloydminster outshot Grande Prairie 32-26. Each team mustered three shots in overtime, during which Gus El-Tahhan almost won it for the Bobcats.
In front of 1,875 fans Friday at the Hub, Bonnyville never trailed as it avenged a home loss to Lloyd a week earlier. Ryley Budd made 39 saves for the Pontiacs (10-9), while the Bobcats’ Matonovich stopped 17 of 21 shots.
AJHL scoring leader Maxwell Pendy netted an empty-net goal and two assists to power Bonnyville, which also received goals from Christophe Lussier, on the power play, Aidan Wilson, Brent Hoshowski and relative newcomer Antoine Demers.
Kade Fendelet, with a two-point night, and Ferguson scored power-play goals for Lloyd.
During a mostly strong November, the Bobcats distanced themselves from inconsistency that had dogged them earlier in the season, but some similar slip-ups cost them a pair of victories on the past weekend.
“Well, the first two periods today, we played like we’re supposed to play and how we played for a few weeks,” coach Labrosse said after Sunday’s game. “Then, in the third period, we came back to how we were maybe a month ago, same as it was Friday. So, some old habits popped up this weekend.
“I didn’t like the (past) week of practice for a lot of players and it kind of showed in the games this weekend, where some guys thought after four (straight) wins that it was probably going to start becoming easy. But I think they realized this weekend that it’s not the case. We’re not good enough to think that it’s going to be easy for us in the AJHL.”
One of the Bobcats’ most consistent players, second-year defenceman Dylan Deets, also noticed a less-focused week in practice preceding the two weekend home games against North Division opponents who sit below Lloydminster in the standings.
“Yeah, I mean, obviously the boys were a little worked down after all the games that we’ve been playing,” said Deets, a 17-year-old Cold Lake native. “But we started off hot in the week, then we took a dip in mid-week, and we’ve been battling back since. I think just the excitement of all the families coming (to Lloyd) probably got to our heads a little bit, and (we were) probably trying to make an extra move, which bit us there in the end.”
The Bobcats’ struggles in the third period were mostly self-inflicted, Deets said.
“We’ve just got to look to work through those moments and come out on top. We blew a 3-0 lead and that can’t happen.”
The Bobcats have ample time to regroup this week as they’re on a nine-day break between games. They don’t play again until they visit the Fort McMurray Oil Barons (10-6-3) for games next Tuesday and Wednesday (Nov. 25 and 26).
Lloydminster forward Fendelet joined a couple of other injured teammates on the sidelines Sunday. Labrosse said Fendelet, defenceman Quinn Keeler and goaltender Ben Polhill are being assessed for “week-to-week” injuries.
“It might be a little while until some of the boys are back.”
Keeler hasn’t played since Oct. 28. Polhill, out of the lineup for the past three games, left prematurely in the third period of the Bobcats’ 4-1 victory on Nov. 7 at Bonnyville. Involved in a heated and physical finish last Friday, Fendelet got hurt in that Nov. 14 rematch with the Pontiacs in Lloyd.
“Hopefully, he should be OK eight days from now against Fort Mac,” Labrosse said about captain Fendelet.
Grande Prairie made its Lloyd-Bonnyville trip without 20-year-old Leland Gill, the Storm’s most active goaltender this season. He was recuperating from a groin injury suffered last week in practice, Leduc said.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Family members and billets were introduced, along with the Bobcats, before Sunday’s game. Twenty of Lloydminster’s 24 players had family visiting the Hub during the weekend. …. Bobcats assistant coach Matt Brassard wasn’t available for the weekend games. He was attending his brother’s wedding in Toronto. …. Ex-Bobcats forward Alessio Nardelli, now of the SJHL’s Battlefords North Stars, was back in Lloyd for a Sunday visit. The night before, he scored his first goal and fourth point in six games with Battlefords. …. Defenceman Lucas Magowan, traded to Camrose from Lloyd on Nov. 5, has a goal and an assist after four games with the AJHL’s Kodiaks. …. The Bobcats skated with some of their youngest fans after Sunday’s game. …. Lloyd is on the road for eight of its next nine games. The only home game during that stretch is Nov. 29 against the first-place Whitecourt Wolverines (15-4). …. The Bobcats and Storm face each other three times in four days from Dec. 10 to Dec. 13 at Grande Prairie.
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