INNISFAIL – Innisfail's senior men’s hockey team will now fight for a second-place finish in its inaugural North Central Hockey League (NCHL) regular season as it prepares for its final home game Saturday against the Westlock Warriors.
Puck drop for the Jan. 18 game is 8 p.m. and the Innisfail Eagles need a big win.
After 14 games in the 16-game season the Birds are in third place in the nine-team senior men’s AA league with 19 points, one behind second place Wetaskiwin Longhorns and seven behind league leading Lacombe Generals.
On Jan. 11 the Eagles lost an important game on the road to Wetaskiwin by a margin of 7 – 2.
Head coach Ryan Dodd said he was “frustrated” with the loss but not because of the way his team played.
“It was frustrating because I thought that we played well. The score wasn't reflective of how the game was going,” Dodd told the Albertan. “There were many areas of the game we were dominating in and it seemed like we didn't get the puck bounces and in turn they did.
“There were a couple goals where pucks bounced off skates and some tips and the puck went into the net, where if it was us the puck would go off a skate or a stick and it would go up and over the net,” added Dodd.
However, he admits Wetaskiwin is a good hockey club, and conceded his squad needs to work on its power play going forward.
He said the team's Jan. 15 practice was going to be dedicated to working on power plays.
"And then going into the game against Westlock we should get a few opportunities to work with the power play and see if we can get it rolling,” said Dodd. “Even if you can get your power play to score 20 per cent of the time you stand a real good chance of winning a lot of hockey games in this league.”
The Eagles’s were still very much in the game against Wetaskiwin after two periods, behind by only a margin of 4 – 2, with Innisfail getting its goals from Payton Wright and Ty Clay.
The total shots on goal during the game were close, with Innisfail firing 43 on the Wetaskiwin net versus 44 that were directed on Eagles netminder Chance Griffith.
But the third period went all the Longhorns’ way, and the game ended with Wetaskiwin winning 7 – 2 and claiming a second place slot in the standings with a game in hand over the Eagles.
After Innisfail’s game against Westlock this Saturday the Eagles’s final game of the regular season will be on the road on Jan. 25 against their longtime archrivals Stony Plain Eagles.
The NCHL playoffs will then begin in the second week of February after the regular season ends for all teams on Feb. 2.
