With less than two minutes to play, the Innisfail Eagles turned the tables on the Okotoks Drillers to pull out a 5-3 victory in the season home opener last Friday night.
The win was a boost for the Eagles, in their first AAA season in the Chinook Hockey League, in their quest to make it all the way to the Allan Cup tournament.
Tylor Keller drove the team towards its season opener victory Friday night, scoring a goal with a mere two minutes left on the game clock. He scored another goal with 0:02 seconds left in the game.
“You gotta make sure you don't beat yourself up, and for the most part, we were pretty good tonight,” said Eagles coach Brian Sutter. “We made some mistakes but it's early in the year, but we did play 60 minutes and it took 60 minutes. We won, and that's a big start for us.”
The home squad started off with a 1-1 tie in the first period, and Luke Boyer put the Eagles in the lead with a goal during the second.
In addition, Darrin Robak scored during a power play with assists from Tylor Keller and Kevin Smyth in the third and the crowd went wild.
“We did really well,” Robak said while catching his breath after the game. “We had some turnovers, but that's expected so early in the season. We battled back and had a really good game.”
A colourful triumph, Sutter added, to be proud of. However, he noted the team had some “tough competition” and needed to do some “work” still.
“It's a good start to the season,” Sutter explained. “It's just early in the year and we're maybe overplaying things. Sometimes you can't let the puck play you.”
“The Eagles won their first game of the year and it's going to be a good season,” said Sutter. “We're going to win them all one at a time, that's my mentality as a coach.”
However, the Eagles were brought down to earth the following night in their first road game of the season when they faced the defending league and Allan Cup champion Bentley Generals. Led by Connor Shields and Cody Esposito, who each scored two goals, Bentley cruised to an overwhelming 7-0 victory. The Generals outshot the Eagles 43 to 24.
For more information about the Eagles, visit http://www.chinookhockeyleague.com/.
