On a rookie-laden opening day roster it was a veteran Okotoks Oiler who carried his team to victory while apprenticing for the ultimate leadership role.
The Oilers are rotating their captaincy to start the season, giving 19-year-old centre Greg Lamoureux the honour of wearing the C for the season opener. It’s safe to say Lamoureux took the gesture to heart, scoring the Oilers’ first goal of the season and clinching the 2-1 victory over the Spruce Grove Saints with the lone shootout tally in Okotoks’ Alberta Junior Hockey League (AJHL) season opener, Sept. 14 at Pason Centennial Arena.
“When you’re wearing the C you just look at the tradition of the guys who’ve worn it in the past and what it takes to be a good leader,” said Lamoureux, one of just six 1992-born players on the roster. “And I thought about that on every shift and tried to personify that on the ice.
“I embrace being a leader and when I have that extra pressure it brings something more out of me.”
Lamoureux broke the scoreless deadlock with 5:26 to go in the third period after burying a rebound off a John Edwardh opportunity on a three-on-two rush.
With under a minute left and Saints goalie Nathan Park off for the extra attacker, Spruce Grove would temporarily spoil the home opener. Dylan Richard broke Oilers netminder Jared D’Amico’s shutout bid on the Saints’ 32nd shot of the game with only 37 seconds left.
Three-on-three overtime settled nothing, sending the game to a shootout.
The shooters were second best through two rounds of shots before Lamoureux rose to the occasion, sniping a high shot past Park to put Okotoks up 1-0.
D’Amico stopped Saint Dustin Fostvelt to end the contest.
Lamoureux said he knew what his shot would be before the shootout.
“It’s something I’ve been working on a lot lately, I come in really fast then slow down and it backs the goalie up and then I just shoot it high blocker usually,” he said. “I knew I was going third so I really studied him and saw he likes to go down so as soon as I put on the brakes he put his hands down and I went up.”
The Oilers and Saints finished the game dead even at 33 shots a piece in a tight-checking, gritty season opening victory for the hosts.
“I wasn’t shocked by how hard we worked because we’ve been training a lot harder this year than last year,” Lamoureux said. “Nothing against last year’s team, but we knew that if we were going to be successful this year it was going to be our hard work that won us games.”
Oilers head coach James Poole said the team earned the win despite a less than inspiring opening 20 minutes to their 2012-13 campaign.
“We looked like a team that hadn’t played in 10 days, the first period I thought we looked pretty tentative,” Poole said. “I thought we engaged in puck battles well, I thought our forecheck seemed to get better as the game went on and our d-men did a pretty good in terms of net front.
“It’s a confidence booster playing against a quality team and finding away to get a win.”
Poole promised to roll four lines this season and did so on special teams, using his full roster of forwards on both the powerplay and penalty kill.
“When you have a young team you could easily roll our top two lines,” Poole said. “But I think we’re trying to take a long-term approach and we want the young players to develop and the only way they’re going to develop is by playing.”
Rookie netminder Devin Green got the start for the Oilers in the second half of their back-to-back two game homestand, Sept. 15 in Okotoks, against the Whitecourt Wolverines.
The 18-year-old had a less than ideal introduction to the AJHL as Ryan Berlin scored on the first shot of the game just 37 seconds after puck drop. Green settled down nicely to stop 23 shots, including a pair of dynamic pad saves in the third period, in a losing cause for the Oilers. Whitecourt won the match 4-3 in overtime.
Jordan Swenson and Scott Bolland answered Berlin’s tally with identical goals on snap shots from the right hashmarks, giving Okotoks a 2-1 lead after the first period.
Berlin scored his second of the game on an odd man rush before Oiler Cody Michelle made a great individual effort to bounce off a bodycheck and feed a great cross-crease pass to Bolland who buried the assist for a 3-2 lead with just 36 seconds left in the middle frame.
The Oilers looked poised to hold off the Wolverines before Jerome Raymond took advantage of a turnover in the neutral zone and sent the game to overtime.
Both teams had several chances in the three-on-three extra session, but it was Berlin who found space on a breakaway with 51 seconds left to complete the hat-trick and give the Wolverines the 4-3 win, their first in franchise history after relocating from St. Albert.
The Oilers played their first road game of the season on Sept. 18 against the Calgary Mustangs, but results were too late for press time.
Okotoks continues the road trip with dates in Camrose on Sept. 20 and Brooks on Sept. 22 and then return home for a Sept. 25 tilt with the Canmore Eagles.
For more information go to www.okotoksoilers.ca.
