Postseason hockey in the BCHL is off on the right foot for the Green and Gold.
The Okotoks Oilers scored three second period goals to overpower the Spruce Grove Saints 6-2 in Game 1 of the best-of-five BCHL Alberta Division playoff wildcard series Wednesday night at the Okotoks Centennial Arenas.
“It’s been a longtime coming, a long regular season and this is the day we were waiting for,” said Oilers forward Connor Gourley. “We were so excited to get things rolling and I thought the boys played a great 60 minutes.”
The Oilers didn’t waste any time putting the visitors on their heels.
Gourley broke the deadlock just 1:24 into the contest, using a screen to beat Saints netminder Alexander Scheiwiller, a former Oiler, with a well-placed wrist shot.
“The energy is going to be there, it’s Game 1 of the playoffs and we’ve got experience,” Gourley added. “The experienced guys took charge in the room, calmed everything down, kept everything simple and went to work.”
Captain Dean Spak, a proven playoff performer, doubled the advantage early in the middle frame with a quick stick on a loose puck near the blue paint.
Spruce Grove got on the board in short order with Alexander Babish cashing in on a miscue at the back, but Okotoks was far from done in its second period goal parade.
Jack Silverberg tallied on the man advantage and rookie defenceman Ryder De Nys scored on the ensuing shift, joining the rush and finding the back of the net off a terrific feed from Jackson Rowland.
https://twitter.com/OkotoksOilers/status/1778279903185531341
In the third, the Saints cut the lead to two Stephen Kirkpatrick and were pushing for parts of the final frame before the Oilers got a key insurance marker from Jagger Tapper with 5:09 left in regulation and an empty-net tally from Sam Huck to seal the deal.
Christian Green made 29 saves for Okotoks in his first playoff game with the team.
“Only giving up two goals, we did a really good job of keeping it simple and locking up the D-zone,” said Oilers defenceman Kade Turner. “We were struggling with the puck a little bit in the third, we did a good job of battling it out and I thought that TV timeout came at a good time.”
The teams met nine times in the regular season, in both the AJHL and BCHL, with Okotoks taking a 5-4 in a seesaw season series.
“They’re an aggressive team, they make it hard on us and we’re just trying to make it hard on them back,” Turner added. “I think we play pretty similar, we’ve got more skill and have got to make it hard on their defence and we did that tonight.”
Game 2 of the set is Thursday, April 11 in Spruce Grove.
For more information, go to okotoksoilers.com.
Playoff schedule
Game 1: April 10. Spruce Grove at Okotoks
Game 2: April 11. Okotoks at Spruce Grove
Game 3: April 13. Spruce Grove at Okotoks
Game 4: April 15. Okotoks at Spruce Grove
Game 5: April 16. Spruce Grove at Okotoks
*All games 7 p.m. starts
Playoff tickets can be purchased at tickets.okotoksoilers.com.
For more information, go to okotoksoilers.com.
