Saints hope history won’t repeat itself
Spruce Grove forces Game 7 with stingy defensive effort
By Mario Annicchiarico, edmontonjournal.com
April 23, 2011
The Spruce Grove Saints celebrate their 2-0 win over the Vernon Vipers during Game 6 action of the Doyle Cup Junior A Hockey Championship in Spruce Grove, Alberta, on April 23, 2011.Photograph by: Jason Franson, edmontonjournal.comSPRUCE GROVE — For the second straight year the Vernon Vipers and Spruce Grove Saints will go to a seventh and deciding game to determine the Doyle Cup champion.
The Saints couldn’t have picked a better time to get their power play going as David Glen got the Alberta Junior Hockey League champions’ struggling special-teams unit untracked at 16:01 of the first period Saturday night, banging a rebound off the end boards past Vernon goaltender Kirby Halcrow.
Spruce Grove’s Scott Allen then made it 2-0 just 2:57 later and the Saints managed to stave off elimination, defeating the Vipers by that 2-0 score and forcing Game 7 on Sunday at 7 p.m. at Grant Fuhr Arena.
Sunday’s winner will advance to the Royal Bank Cup, the national junior A championship, starting April 30 in Camrose. The Vipers have won the last two Canadian titles, having defeated the Saints 7-3 at home in the Doyle Cup clincher — between the B.C. and Alberta reps — last season.
This will be another fitting end between two solid organizations.
“I thought our goaltending was outstanding tonight and we capitalized on our opportunities,” said Saints head coach Jason McKee. “The big power-play goal to get us going, then scoring late in the period gave us some momentum.
“I don’t think anybody was picking a short series. I think we all knew it was going to be a long series and there’s not a lot to choose between the two teams, for sure.”
Having lost two straight at home, the Saints weren’t about to suffer a third. In fact, according to the organization, the club has never lost three consecutive home games since moving from St. Albert in the 2004-05 season.
McKee’s Saints took advantage of special teams to push the series to the limit. The Saints were just 1-for-9 with the man advantage in the two previous home games, losing both after grabbing a 2-1 series lead in Vernon. Saturday the power play was 1-for-4, but struck early, gaining momentum in the opening 20 minutes.
Glen and Allen provided the first-period scoring and the Saints then played a defensive brand of hockey, relying on netminder Vincenzo Marozzi as the hosts were outshot 25-22.
“We made a couple of mistakes that ended up in the back of our net, but for the most part we created a lot of opportunities,” said Vipers coach Mark Ferner. “It’s a tough thing to ask to come in here — and we understand that — to win three games in a row on the road against a good hockey team.
“Yeah, the guys are disappointed, but if we knew we had an opportunity to play a Game 7, especially after the first three, we would have taken it.”
Most of Vernon’s chances came in the first period as well. Dylan Walchuk, who scored twice in Thursday’s 3-2 overtime victory, slid a chance wide eight minutes in and Michael Zalewski was stoned twice by Marozzi on a 4-on-4 break. Marozzi also deflected a puck wide as he scrambled out of his net and was nearly caught in no man’s land.
“Shoot, we have an open-net short-handed. The goalie dives (to deflect it). We maybe could have made another decision on it for a tap-in. … A lot of pucks were in behind their goalie, we just never got there,” said Ferner. “Like I said, we’re disappointed, but I’m happy with our guys’ effort and I know they’ll be ready (Sunday).”
As will the Saints, who should get a bigger crowd than the roughly 1,100 on hand Saturday.
“I thought we really stuck to our team framework tonight,” said McKee. “Played real good defence and when we did break down Vince made some big saves.”
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