The Okotoks Bantam AA Oilers are proving the old adage a whole is greater than the sum of its parts to be as true as ever this season.
The rookie-laden Oilers have stormed out of the gate in the South Central Alberta Hockey League (SCAHL) with an 8-2-2 record, good for second in the South division.
“We are a real consistent bunch, we really don’t have a highly celebrated goal scorer, but everybody buys into the system,” said Oilers head coach Keith Harris. “Everyone works really hard and we just kind of grind them out.”
The Oilers feature three forwards in Travis Yee, Tate Laycraft and Tyler Coffee who are playing at a point-per-game clip or better, but are void of a player in the top-15 in league scoring.
“We have a lot of really good hockey players, we don’t have a superstar,” Harris said. “So we can roll the bench, we roll all three lines and everybody contributes and it’s kind of nice that we don’t have to lean heavily on one player.”
Instead, the Bantam AA squad has relied on a diligent puck pursuit and forecheck and embraced a blue-collar workmanlike attitude on the ice featuring 16 players who have already tickled the twine this season.
“We just pressure, pressure, pressure and we’re a miserable team for defencemen to play against,” Harris said. “That’s how we create opportunities and we need to create a bunch of them in order to generate goals on the board.”
Okotoks is not abandoning its responsibilities at the defensive end of the ice. On the contrary, in fact, as the Oilers’ defence and goaltending has suffocated the opposition all season with just 22 goals against through 12 games, good for the second-lowest total in the league.
The Oilers’ coach credited his goaltending duo of Tanner Webster and Liam Aitken, both of whom carry .910 save percentages or better, along with a commitment to defence for the lack of opposition offence.
“We take a lot of pride in our end of the rink and our forwards are very defensive minded,” Harris said. “We typically have three guys coming back hard and we’re a tough team to camp out in the offensive zone on.”
The Oilers’ backend features AAA quality players, many of whom were cut from playing for the Bantam AAA Oilers only due to a deep crop of 1998 and 1999 born prospects.
“Mike Bara on the AAA team had some really difficult decisions to make which we benefited a lot from,” Harris said.
Defencemen Dawson Wade and Cooper Krauss, the only two returning players for the Bantam AA Oilers, have been leaned on heavily by the coaching staff as the co-captains.
“Those guys are just a real good example on and off the ice for our guys,” Harris said. “That’s why we picked them as captains, they’re just down-to-earth kids.”
For Wade, a Grade 9 student at John Paul II Collegiate, this year’s version of the Oilers is a study in contrasts from the 2011-12 squad.
“We have definitely a different group, we’re a lot smaller than last year,” Wade said.
“But I think the heart and the commitment this year is really strong and everybody wants it a lot more, we’re working really well as a team.”
The defence corps cohesion comes down to its interchangeability, Wade said.
“We switch partners around a little bit, but everyone always has each other’s back,” he said.
The chemistry up-front is also noticeable for the club as many of the Oilers graduated from the SCAHL champion Peewee AA Oilers from last season.
One such alumni, Oilers’ forward Carter Harris, said it was always going to be a difficult encore for the Peewee graduates this season, but the first year players have already earned their stripes in Bantam.
“Our age group has always been together on teams so we have learned to communicate and we always work well together,” he said. “It wasn’t that (daunting) because I knew I would be playing with lots of kids I already knew.”
The Oilers hit the road this weekend for back-to-back games. They’re in Black Diamond on Saturday for a home date, outside of Okotoks due to the Female Hockey Tournament on the weekend, with the Foothills Bisons at 6:45 p.m. and travel north to square off with the Red Deer Steel Kings on Sunday.
For more information on the team go to www.ooaaoilerhockey.com.
