This past weekend, your Drumheller Dragons had a double dip against the Grande Prairie Storm. These two teams haven’t met since earlier in October which saw a goalie fight of all things. It would be a lively set of games for sure.
Saturday night would be a great and close battle. The Dragons would open the scoring late in the first period when Nick McLennan scored his fifth of the year, from Jase Johnstone and Lauchlan Kozicky at 14:24. Then, with only 18 seconds left in the period, Ayden Peters would tally his 18th of the year for the Dragons, on the powerplay, from Ellis Mieyette and Will McLaughlin. The Dragons would take the 2-0 lead to the second period.
There would be no scoring in the second. The Grande Prairie Storm would get one back early in the third when the puck came off of Dragons goaltender Sean Cootes, right to the Storm’s leading scorer, Tomas Marinkovic, and he would score on the man-advantage. The rough stuff would continue when Dragons forward Brec Christenson would drop the gloves with former Dragon, Ryan Seeley. Grande Prairie would pull their goaltender with 1:08 left in the game but could not get the equalizer, giving the Dragons the 2-1 victory.
The same two teams would meet for an afternoon affair on Sunday and the game would be as exciting and tight as Saturday night. The Dragons would again come out strong and take the early lead at 3:56 when Allen Sherpa scored his 10th of the year, from Lauchlan Kozicky and Jase Johnstone. Then with 2:15 left in the period, the Dragons powerplay would capitalize when Easton Daneault scored his 17th of the year, from Will McLaughlin and Ellis Mieyette.
Similar to Saturday’s game, on Sunday there would be no scoring in the second period. The Dragons would get into a bit of penalty trouble in the third, giving the Storm a full two minutes of 5 on 3 powerplay time. Within that powerplay, Grande Prairie would score three times. At 3:58 Colin Doherty scored, then only seconds later, Doherty would score once again. At 5:28, Chase Christensen would give Grande Prairie the lead, 3-2. Just over a minute later, at 7:14, the Dragons would tie the game with Jase Johnstone scoring his 11th of the season, from Nick McLennan and Brec Christenson.
The game would remain tied through the third, In overtime, the Dragons would have to kill off a penalty to Easton Daneault, and would do so, sending the game to a shootout and what a shootout it would be. There would be no scorers through nine rounds of the shootout with both netminders making some amazing stops to send the shootout to round 10. The Dragons would shoot first in round ten and Jase Johnstone would out maneuver Storm goaltender Nicholas Jones and score. Grande Prairie’s Brandon de Haas would have the opportunity to send the shootout to round 11 but was stopped by Sean Cootes, giving the Dragons the 4-3 shootout victory.
Jase Johnstone scoring the only goal in the shootout. Amazing shot courtesy of Reg Bennett
With the four points this weekend, the Dragons are four points back of Camrose for third place in the AJHL South Division and are now 12 points up on Drayton Valley for the fourth and final playoff spot.
The Dragons are off until Saturday when they pay their final visit to the Centennial Civic Centre Arena in Lloydminster to face the Bobcats. The Bobcats will be moving to their new arena next season. The game on Saturday will be at 7 PM and can be heard on “the home of the Dragons” New Country 92.5 with Jason Blanke and Boedy Shields. It all starts with the Western GM Pregame Show at 6:45 PM.
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