Back home after five games on the road, the U18 AAA Lloydminster Lancers celebrated in style Sunday at the Hub, scoring a 6-5 victory over the first-place Fort Saskatchewan Rangers.
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The Lancers did it the hard way, but it seems there isn’t a comfortable route to winning in the Alberta Elite Hockey League.
After relinquishing a three-goal lead in the third period, the Lancers restored their momentum when Tripp Fischer’s power-play goal with five-plus minutes left broke a 5-5 tie.
Just six seconds into that power play, Kael Scott won a corner battle in the Fort Saskatchewan zone and slipped the puck back to Fischer, whose quick shot from the right faceoff circle beat goaltender Kasey Fuson low on the far, blocker side.
“Kael just popped it out, and their D-man reached, so I just kind of pulled it around and shot it, and it ended up going in,” said Fischer, with his second goal and fifth point in the past four games.
During that two-week stretch, the Lancers have secured five of a possible eight points, including two wins and a tie. Their only loss in that mix was a 5-3 setback Saturday against the host Leduc Oil Kings (7-11-3).
At home for a rare morning start, Lloydminster (4-11-3) went into Sunday’s game 20 points behind Fort Sask (14-6-1) at opposite ends of the North Division standings.
But the Lancers, who played an afternoon game Saturday, tried to take advantage of the Rangers possibly being tired from playing past 10 o’clock that night in a 4-1 loss to the Edmonton Junior Oilers Blue.
Scheduled for 11:15 a.m., Sunday’s game actually began about half an hour later.
In the offensive outburst that followed, Lloyd outscored Fort Sask 4-2 in a wild second period to go up 5-2, before an even wilder third stanza saw the Rangers push back in waves. The game was on the line until Lancers goaltender Stran Edge, with a 39-save performance overall, stopped Nathan Castonguay with 10 seconds left and shortly after the big Rangers’ defenceman had stepped out of the penalty box.
Beginning with a power-play goal from their leading scorer, Emile Plourde, the Rangers had scored three goals within 4:18 before the nine-minute mark of the third period. The Lancers didn’t respond with a timeout, but they regrouped just the same, and Fischer potted the winner.
Unlike a few other home games early in the season, Lloyd bent but didn’t break Sunday, showing its maturing process is trending in the right direction.
“Yeah, you can almost feel it in the dressing room,” said Fischer, 15. “Even when we go down, there’s times where we start getting going and back up again. We’re pretty resilient. That all comes with confidence. If you’re not confident in your team or yourself, you’re not going to push through when you’re down or when you give up a couple (of goals).”
Scott and Gavin Pratt each collected a goal and two assists in the Lancers’ win. On the power play, Scott scored the lone first-period marker.
Fischer, Logan Flewell and defenceman Rhett Romanchuk each added a goal and an assist. Flewell’s short-handed, breakaway tally came just 16 seconds into the second period.
Connor Nickle, just back from playing his first AJHL game with the Lloydminster Bobcats the night before, scored the Lancers’ other goal. His marker with just under five minutes left in the second period chased Fort Sask starting goalie Kayd Mercier, who gave up five goals on 19 shots.
Mercier’s replacement, Fuson, stopped all but one of the 14 shots he faced as Lloydminster posted 33 shots overall.
Along with power-play markers from Plourde and Ethan Collins, Fort Sask got goals from Crue Mohr, Jeremy Moellenbeck and Hunter Colombe.
It was one of those games where any scoring chance seemed like a quality one, as both teams scored on fortuitous bounces and rebounds, along with a few pretty goals.
“Fort Sask’s goals were all pretty greasy in the third period,” Fischer said. “They just threw pucks and went hard (to the net). It works, so why not do it.”
A similar strategy worked well for the Lancers, especially in the wide-open second period.
“Yeah, definitely, we talked about it before the game, mainly focusing on getting pucks deep, being hard to play against, not trying to be too skillful, try to be a hard team to play against, try to be gritty,” said Romanchuk, the 17-year-old captain in his third year with the U18 AAA Lancers.
“That comes with throwing pucks to the net and driving to the net.”
As definitive as both the second and third periods were on Sunday, the Lancers’ reaction to their opening 20 minutes was equally critical. They were leading 1-0 at the time, but Romanchuk loudly reminded his teammates in the intermission that they needed to pull up their socks.
“I thought we were really soft in our D zone,” he said about the Lancers’ first-period performance. “It was kind of a universal opinion from everybody. I just think that if the message isn’t getting through, sometimes you do have to show a little tough love. But I think it helped out a lot. We had a really, really good second.
“Obviously, I don’t like doing that, because all of these guys are my friends and my brothers, but sometimes you need it.”
Lloydminster also needed a big outing from Edge, the Marwayne goaltender who made game-saving stops even when the tide shifted in the third period and the Rangers continued to press. With fellow goalie Asher Ammann battling sickness for the past month, Edge has been the main man between the pipes during recent weeks, and he has answered the bell well.
“I think Stran was a big part of that (defence) today,” Romanchuk concurred. “He was really helping us out back there, making all those first saves. We just kind of got unlucky with the rebounds and bad bounces and stuff like that. But we just didn’t let up. We knew what the goal was, and we just kept going.”
Fischer has seen similar stuff from Edge, 16, in past seasons. They were previously academy teammates with the Lloydminster Athletics program.
“Stran has been kicking,” Fischer said. “He’s been good for us. He’s a gamer. He’s always been like that. I’ve played with him for a few years, and once he’s into it, he’s into it.”
Edge, with a 4-5-1 record, has been in net for all of the Lancers’ wins this season, which he began as the team’s backup goalie.
Ammann, 17, just returned to the Lloydminster bench on the weekend after dealing with health issues that surfaced in early November during his call-up to the Bobcats, said Lancers coach Chris King.
Along with missing Nickle for Saturday’s game, the Lancers were without another one of their key forwards, Ty Domshy, for both weekend games. He’s recovering from a concussion suffered during action the previous weekend in Grande Prairie.
Domshy, who rode the exercise bike while watching the second period of Sunday’s game, hopes to be ready to go this weekend.
In their final pre-Christmas home game, the Lancers host the Sherwood Park Kings (9-9-2) at 1:30 p.m. Saturday (Dec. 13). Lloyd visits the Edmonton Junior Oilers Orange (8-5-3) at 2 p.m. Sunday (Dec. 14).
In last Saturday’s loss at Leduc, the Lancers’ scorers were Flewell, Scott and Aiden Harman. Edge made 40 saves, six more than the Oil Kings’ Owen Prasek. Kade Harstad scored a hat trick for Leduc. He now has 12 goals and 18 points after 20 games. Trayvis Shirt and Ordell Saddleback, with an empty-netter, also tallied for the Oil Kings.
Riding a hot streak, Lancers rookie Scott has been piling up points of late. With four goals and nine points in the past five games, Scott now leads the team with 20 points (8-12) after 18 games. Fellow freshman forward Brody Sunderland and veteran D-man Romanchuk are next with 19 points each.
“He’s been going good,” Fischer said about Scott. “He’s been getting in dirty areas and putting up numbers, so that’s good for him.”
Fischer himself is in the thick of things again after missing the early part of the season because of a high-ankle sprain and his commitments as part of Team Alberta for the U16 WHL Cup.
“It feels good to be back and to be with everyone consistently,” he said. “It’s nice to have a role now.”
Fischer scored his first goal of the season during the Lancers’ profitable late November trip to Grande Prairie, where they defeated the 5-10-3 Grande Peace Storm 4-3 in overtime and settled for a 6-6 tie the next day.
“GP was good for everyone,” Fischer reported. “We won that first game and ended up tying the second one, which was OK. We should have won that. But it was a good confidence boost for everyone. You could tell that today (against Fort Sask). I felt like we played better and with more confidence and poise.”
Kelton Doolaege scored with 47 seconds left in overtime to give Lloydminster its victory over Grande Peace. Scott, Domshy and Fischer had the Lancers’ other goals, while Romanchuk supplied two assists. Storm goaltender Bracken Larocque made 45 saves, and Edge blocked 27 of the 30 shots he faced.
A day later, Larocque and Edge recorded 35 and 27 saves, respectively, as the teams battled to the overtime tie.
Scott, with a three-point game, scored the equalizer with 10 minutes left in the third period. Lloyd’s other goals came from Harman, Doolaege, Domshy, Romanchuk and Locklin Mitchell.
Harman, Romanchuk and Josh Frazer each produced two points. Grande Peace captain Chase Wiens, with two goals and two assists, led all scorers as he figured in four of the Storm’s six goals.
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