A new group put forth a familiar result for the Green and Gold.
The Okotoks Oilers (26-4-2) continued their strong divisional play with a pair of home victories over the Calgary Canucks and Drumheller Dragons with Okotokian Gibb Coady returning to the lineup in the Canucks win after missing 16 games to injury while both defenceman Nic Draffin and deadline acquisition Liam Freeborn made their Oilers debuts versus Calgary.
"I just liked the excitement the guys brought," said Oilers head coach Tyler Deis. "We're trying to get better coming up and I thought the team played well.
"With both of them I'm really happy. Draffin hasn't played defence in a while and I thought he was really good and is only going to get better and I thought with Freeborn, he's been out for a while, when we get into playoffs and he's running on all cylinders I think it's going to be awesome."
Draffin, a 6-foot-3, 205 pound rearguard, was a teammate of Oilers centre Carson Dyck on an extremely successful minor hockey teams out of Lethbridge. The defenceman helped the Midget AAA Hurricanes to a Telus Cip bronze medal in 2018 and spent parts of the last two seasons with the Western Hockey League's Vancouver Giants.
"Size doesn't really matter to me," Deis said. "It's guys that can be dependable, make good smart plays and be reliable defensively. And he just brings that calm and composure back there."
Okotoks' revamped forward group, which has seen the additions of Freeborn, Brandon Machado and the return of hometown forwards Coady and Jaevon Buschlen, got its first chance to flex its offensive might over the weekend.
"It's great - not that we didn't have depth before, but we've added even more depth," said Oilers forward Louis Jamernik. "And I like having Gibb back on my line, missed him from the beginning of the year and then Freeborn I've played with him in previous years so it's good to have everybody back."
Coady made up for lost time, a rehabilitation which saw him miss seven weeks of action with limited training available to him, by notching his first goal of the season in the 6-2 triumph over the Dragons on Dec. 8 at Pason Centennial Arena.
"Jamernik gave me a pass across there and I tried to stuff it far side and it didn't go in and then I just whacked it again and it went in," said Coady, who has 10 assists on the season. "It was kind if just sitting there the last seven weeks not being able to play, but it was nice to get that one."
Freeborn opened the scoring for Okotoks in the first-period after Shane Ott got the Dragons on the board. Marc Pasemko added a highlight reel marker, poking in the puck with one hand on the stick, Zane Kindrachuk and Dylan James scored 11 seconds apart in the middle frame with Coady and Eric Parker adding third period tallies.
"I think we've got four really strong lines," Coady said. "I'm playing with Freeborn and Jamernik now and I think Freeborn was a pretty good addition. With (Brandon) Machado and Draffin and all them, I think it's all really coming together."
Ashton Abel picked up his 19th win of the season with 20 saves on the night.
Okotoks improved to 3-1 in the season series with Drumheller.
"We were just physical, got lots of shots and outworked them," Jamernik said. "Playing at home, especially last week against Bonnyville, we just want to beat every team badly."
Particularly those in the South.
Okotoks opened up a 17-point cushion between them and the third-place Dragons following the weekend's results.
"Games against Drum, Brooks, all these teams, are huge," Jamernik added. "Because we just want to give ourselves a little bit of cushion, we want to catch Brooks, but a cushion against Drum for playoffs."
Okotoks edged the Canucks 2-1 the night prior on home ice.
Jamernik and rookie defenceman Tucker McRae provided the offence for the hosts who were turned aside time and again by Jay Thomson, who made 51 saves on 53 shots in the Canucks goal.
At the other end of the ice, Brady Parker had a quiet night with 15 saves to pick up his seventh win in his last seven starts.
The Oilers, the 7th ranked team in the CJHL latest national Top-20 rankings, hit the road for a busy stretch this week with mid-week stops in Sherwood Park and Spruce Grove on Dec. 11-12. Okotoks is back home on Dec. 14 for a divisional clash with the Olds Grizzlys – the team’s final home game of the month.
"They're really good teams, especially in their own barns," Jamernik said. "We've just got to get lots of shots and discipline is a big thing for us as a group and just win, continue to win."
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