In a playoff race that went right down to the wire, the U18 AAA Lloydminster Lancers punched their ticket Sunday evening in their 38th and final game of the Alberta Elite Hockey League regular season.
Read more: Lloydminster Lancers skate into final playoff push
With their 4-1 victory over the host Sherwood Park Kings (18-18-2), the Lancers (14-17-7) clinched the organization’s first playoff berth in three years.
“I would say we have a very resilient group,” said Lancers scoring champion Kael Scott, who added two more goals and an assist Sunday to give him 21 goals and 46 points in 38 games in his rookie season.
“We had a rough start to the year and were at the bottom, but we all stuck with it, trusted the process and it’s been growth all the way up to now.”
Now, Lloydminster is up against the rival St. Albert Raiders (21-10-7) in a best-of-three North Division quarter-final that began Wednesday night (Feb. 25) in the Edmonton suburb.
Game 2 is set for 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the Hub in Lloydminster, with a possible third game slated for 5 p.m. Sunday at St. Albert.
Just three days before their playoff series began, the Lancers completed a critical two-win weekend.
At home in the Hub on Saturday, Lloydminster posted a season-saving 3-2 victory over the Leduc Oil Kings (13-17-8). That head-to-head battle ultimately cost the Oil Kings, who finished in seventh place in the North, one point behind both Lloyd and fifth-place Edmonton Junior Oilers Orange (16-19-3).
The Lancers went into Sunday’s suppertime game in Sherwood Park knowing that they needed a win to gain the last playoff berth. Although one point would have tied Lloyd with Leduc, the tiebreakers (wins and head-to-head play) weren’t working in the Lancers’ favour.
The Oil Kings thickened the playoff-pursuit plot Sunday when they gained their final point in a 4-4 tie with the higher-ranked Fort Saskatchewan Rangers. That game ended shortly after 4 p.m., about 40 minutes before the puck dropped in Lloydminster’s game at Sherwood Park.
The Lancers didn’t leave anything to chance as they registered their third win over the Kings in three weeks. They scored three second-period goals, including two from Scott, to gain a 3-1 lead.
Scott netted power-play and even-strength goals, respectively, and assisted on a power-play marker from Brody Sunderland with 35 seconds left in the middle period.
Connor Nickle added more insurance early in the third period when he cashed in after another rush. Gavin Pratt contributed two assists, while Stran Edge blocked 32 shots in the Lloyd net.
The lone Sherwood Park goal came from Damien Wiebe in the first period.
The Lancers played like a team on a mission, firing 53 shots at Kings goaltender Hayden Rinas to solidify the win and cement Lloyd’s hard-earned post-season berth.
“I was pumped,” said Scott, a 15-year-old forward who’s on track to play in the Western Hockey League with the Calgary Hitmen.
“We knew we needed to win and put it all on the line, so the boys were definitely excited. It was a great opportunity to experience, for sure.”
Scott and fellow 2025 WHL draft choices Sunderland, Josh Frazer and Tripp Fischer are part of a wave of young talent that joined Lloydminster this season under new head coach Chris King, along with assistant coaches Riley Fletcher and Joe Gidari.
The Lancers went 5-2-3 in their final 10 games to climb into a playoff position, just one year after Lloyd finished last in the 16-team provincial league.
Scott, a serious candidate for AEHL U18 AAA rookie of the year, was a constant in the Lloyd lineup all season. Likewise for the team’s second-leading scorer, graduating defenceman Rhett Romanchuk, who collected 10 goals and 37 points in 37 games.
Scott stayed healthy all year, despite playing a physical brand of hockey on top of his offensive contributions.
“I think the biggest contributors are my teammates,” said Scott, whose 46 points ranked 14th in league scoring.
“I wouldn’t be able to do what I do without them, and I think everyone doing their part made my job that much easier.”
The job doesn’t get any easier for the Lancers as they face a formidable team in St. Albert, which won the season series 4-0, including two overtime victories. They’ve had some intense battles with each other this year. Part of the rivalry centres around Lancers forward Ty Domshy, the St. Albert native who moved to his father’s native Lloydminster to play a valuable role in his final season of U18 AAA eligibility.
“St. Albert is definitely a tougher opponent for us,” Scott said Monday. “We’ve had close games and ones we’ve also not been great in. But we’ve been playing playoff hockey for the last month, so I think we are at that calibre and used to what it’s going to be like.
“I think we need to stick to what we do best and trust the process along the way for (us to have) success.”
The Lancers managed to gain a point from their final regular-season game against the Raiders, who won a 4-3 overtime decision in Lloyd just two weeks ago. St. Albert captain Nolan Bisson scored the winning goal on a power play in the first minute of overtime.
Bisson, a forward who began this season with the junior A Lloydminster Bobcats, is a prospect of the WHL’s Spokane Chiefs, as are three Lancers — forwards Frazer, Nickle and Sunderland.
St. Albert battled injuries down the stretch. Most notably, the Raiders’ top scorer and Brandon Wheat Kings’ prospect Carson Ralph hadn’t played since Feb. 11. He scored 16 goals and 36 points in 33 games.
Bisson, the Raiders’ fourth-leading scorer, netted 21 goals and 32 points in just 26 games.
St. Albert defenceman Brody Daoust, 17, played three games last weekend — one with the Raiders and two as a call-up to the AJHL’s Canmore Eagles. He was in the Eagles’ lineup on Sunday afternoon for their 5-4 overtime victory at Lloydminster. Daoust’s brother Cohen is a high-scoring forward with Canmore.
“We’re pretty happy to have him on board, and be a part of the group,” Eagles coach-GM Andrew Milne said Sunday about Brody Daoust.
“He’s a smart kid, cerebral, who thinks the game really well. A lot like his brother at the same age. We’re expecting good things from Brody. That’s his fourth game for us this year. His St. Albert U18 AAA team is pretty banged up as well, so he’s had to spend a lot of time with them.”
In its final regular-season game, St. Albert defeated Fort Saskatchewan 3-1 on Saturday on the strength of two goals from Bisson and 29 saves from Seth Badry, who has appeared in AJHL action with the first-place Whitecourt Wolverines.
In the other North Division quarter-final, fourth-place Sherwood Park meets No. 5 Oilers Orange.
The Orange kept themselves in the playoff picture with a 6-4 victory on Saturday versus the Okotoks Oilers (17-18-3), before losing 6-5 to the Calgary Northstars (25-10-3) on Sunday.
The North’s top two regular-season teams — Edmonton Junior Oilers Blue (29-6-3) and Fort Saskatchewan (23-9-6) — received opening-round playoff byes.
The Calgary Northwest Flames (28-7-3) and the Northstars were awarded first-round byes in the South, where the matchups pitted the third-place Calgary Buffaloes (22-12-4) against the No. 6 Red Deer Chiefs (16-20-2) and fourth-place Okotoks against the fifth-seeded Calgary Royals (17-18-3).
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