Grizzlys end home schedule with win

The Olds Grizzlys finished up their 2011-12 Alberta Junior Hockey League regular season home schedule on Feb. 8 with a 2-1 victory over the Calgary Canucks. They then followed that up with a 5-2 loss two nights later in Drumheller against the Dragons.

The Dragons were four points up on the Canmore Eagles at the end of weekend action for the final playoff spot in the south division, with two games remaining. As a result of that, Brett Hopfe, the Grizzlys' head coach, said the team ran into a desperate Dragons squad that capitalized on four of its nine power-play chances.

“Our penalty kill wasn't very good to begin with on Friday. We were playing against a very desperate team … and I feel like they wanted it more than we did,” he said, adding that in the last few games, the penalty kill has been good, “(but) for whatever reason on Friday we didn't seem to get the job done.”

On Wednesday, the Grizzlys fired 50 shots at Canucks goaltender Michael Matyas, who stopped all 22 shots he faced in the third period. Hopfe said the Grizzlys wanted to throw the puck at the net at every opportunity and crash it to disrupt Matyas' concentration.

“Matyas is a great goaltender in this league and we knew it was going to be difficult to get pucks by him, but our game plan going in was to get shots on net and a lot of traffic in front of him and I thought we did a great job getting to the net in that game. I thought the guys did a great job of following the game plan,” he said.

While Hopfe said the Grizzlys are aiming at consistency from game to game heading into the playoffs, it's a bit of a struggle to get that with the team stuck in fifth in the south division, 17 points behind the Calgary Mustangs and seven up on the Canucks. Hopfe is pleased with the team's work ethic, however.

“Really, we're in a position now where you don't really move up or down in the standings, but we've been really focused on wanting to get on a roll going into playoffs and we have three games left to do that. Even in the losses, we've had a consistent work ethic, which is what you want,” he said.