One down and quite possibly two more to go.
Dylan Holloway had four points in Saturday’s 6-3 win over the Olds Grizzlys to hit the 81-point mark and set the Okotoks Oilers franchise record for points in a season, eclipsing the previous mark of 78 held by Kyle Reynolds from 2011 and Elliott Sheen from 2008.
The AJHL’s leading scorer, Holloway’s 34 goals and 47 assists are in striking distance of both Okotoks’ single season goals mark, 42 by John McInnis in ‘09, and assists record, Sheen’s 51 helpers in ’08.
The Wisconsin commit is on an 18-game point streak, and has been putting up multi-point efforts for fun with two points or more in eight of his past nine games. The model of consistency, he’s only had seven pointless games in 45 played for the green-and-gold in 2018-19.
The Bragg Creek native’s two-goal, two-assist effort paced Okotoks to its 12th straight win, Saturday at the Olds Sportsplex. Ryan Grant and Kaleb Ergang added powerplay goals with Carson Dyck and Ben Evanish adding the other tallies.
The win swept the six-game season series over the Grizz.
Okotoks’ season high win streak was one minute away from slipping away the night prior.
Desperation kicked in as Evanish scored the equalizer with 59 seconds on the clock and Holloway notched the shootout winner as the Oilers struck back to edge the Calgary Mustangs 5-4 Friday night on home-ice to extend its unbeaten run to 11 games.
“That do-or-die moment, it kicks in and the adrenaline just spikes,” said Evanish. “When the coach draws up a play you want to make sure you do it right. When Holly missed that first one and I had that second chance before the goal where it hit the stick, we just kept pushing.”
Evanish, Holloway and Kyle Gordon had a half-dozen brilliant opportunities to even the score late only to have Mustangs netminder Ashton Abel stand on his head in the late going.
Brady Parker, the AJHL Player of the Month for January, did his own brick wall impersonation in the shootout, stopping all three Calgary shooters and opening the door for Holloway’s game-winning strike in the third round after Ergang and Quinn Olson were turned aside.
“With our goalie and the shooters we have I’m not as nervous as I should be,” Evanish said. “We had Ergang, then Olson and Holloway shooting and Parker, player of the month, with that firepower I’m not that nervous.”
The fleet-footed Mustangs looked poised to play spoilers on Friday with a strong opening 40 minutes. Daniel Rybarik and Joseph Karpyshyn both found the back of the net in the first five minutes.
“They get through the neutral zone very well, they’ve got good puck moving d-men and they love going and scoring goals, all of their forwards,” Gordon said. “We did a very poor job because we knew what we were going to get, it’s the fifth time playing them. Our d-zone was not very good, we weren’t blocking shots in the first.”
Okotoks kicked into gear midway through the frame when the rushing Tanner Sawka set up fellow-rookie Gibb Coady for a tap-in.
The Oilers evened the score late in the stanza after Carson Dyck’s hard-work on the fore-check forced a turnover leading to Quinn Olson’s tally, extending the Calgarian’s point-streak to 19 games. Holloway then gave Okotoks its first lead on a deflection in front.
Calgary got back in front in short order as Liam Freeborn and Tanner Klassen scored 1:12 apart in period three, setting the stage for Okotoks’ last-dash comeback.
“We weren’t very happy with our game, but at the end of the day we won so we got the job done,” Gordon said. “We do have a lot of negatives to take away from this game. Our start was terrible and I thought some guys, a lot of us, weren’t ready to play.”
Okotoks is on the road for its final meeting of the season with the Drumheller Dragons on Feb. 8 and travel to Canmore to clash with the Eagles on Feb. 12.
The team’s next home game is Feb. 15 versus the Spruce Grove Saints.
For more information go to okotoksoilers.ca
