The Okotoks Oilers let a winnable game slip away against the North Division’s basement dwellers at home on Oct. 13.
Okotoks (6-5-2) fell 3-2 in a shootout to the Lloydminster Bobcats (3-9-2), owners of the Alberta Junior Hockey League’s worst clubs in a tilt Saturday at Pason Centennial Arena.
“I thought we dominated a good portion of that game and couldn’t finish them off in the third,” said Oilers centre Connor Hartley. “We were definitely hoping for two points from that game.”
An auspicious start for the Oilers saw the team control the possession and hem the visitors all period long.
Okotoks co-captain Robbie Fisher got the Oilers’ struggling power-play off the snide as he operated in his office in front of the net and accepted a nice feed from Greg Lamoureux for a tap-in past Bobcat goalie Chase Martin with 1:30 left in the first period.
The strong start was spoiled at the buzzer after a miscue on an innocent dump-in play between Okotoks goalie Jared D’Amico and a pair of Oilers’ defencemen led to a Dustin Lebrun marker with one second left.
“To give up that late goal with no time left on the clock was kind of deflating that you come out of that period without any lead,” said Oilers head coach James Poole.
It was a familiar reprise in the second act.
The Oilers operated almost exclusively in the Bobcats’ zone all period, but failed to create ample scoring opportunities.
Okotoks regained the lead when defenceman Robert Hamilton found Hartley with a seeing-eye pass up the middle of the ice setting up one of the team’s prettiest goals of the year.
“I just jumped off the bench and saw Hamilton with the puck and tried to split behind the defence and (Hamilton) found me,” Hartley said. “The goalie was a little smaller so I saw a little bit of room on the right side so I just tried to get it away quick and it went in.”
The celebrations were short-lived.
Hartley’s goal was answered by a powerplay marker from Bobcats’ leading scorer Matthew Marcinew just 25 seconds before the end of the period.
The third period saw the ice tilt in Lloydminster’s favour and for the first time the visitors mounted sustained pressure on the Oilers.
“We just let off the gas a little in the third,” Hartley said. “We let them dictate the play instead of us dictating the play.”
Poole said there could have been a variety of factors leading to the third period downfall.
“I don’t know if it was fatigue from all the road games we’ve been playing recently or just the mindset of playing afraid to lose, but the third period I thought we really lost our game,” Poole said. “For whatever reason we seemed to get outworked.”
Three-on-three overtime provided plenty of chances for both teams including a Marcinew point-blank shot and slew of opportunities from Oiler Chris Collins, but ultimately settled nothing and sent the game to a shootout.
Drew Weich stepped up first for the Oilers, but was stymied by the right post and D’Amico stopped Bobcat Braden Crone’s shot. Collins was next, and despite fanning on his attempted wrist shot, it fooled Martin and trickled in, but Marcinew answered right back with a goal of his own.
Red-hot rookie John Edwardh, fresh off a hat-trick the previous game against Camrose, beat Martin clean but his shot sailed high and just missed the top corner. Lebrun then had the game on his stick and beat D’Amico for the second time of the game to give the Bobcats their first road victory of the season.
The Oilers have a quiet week in store with just one game on the docket. Okotoks travels to Drumheller on Oct. 19 for its first meeting of the season with the Dragons. The Oilers then travel to Olds on Oct. 23 for the first time since the Grizzlys eliminated Okotoks from the second round of last year’s playoffs.
For more information on the Oilers go to www.okotoksoilers.ca.
