Trojans 5 Kings 4
PENHOLD — A lack of discipline snatched defeat from the jaws of victory for the Red Deer College Kings men’s hockey team on Friday night in Penhold.
Despite one of their better efforts of the year, the Kings (10-12-0-3) could not stop the SAIT Trojans (22-5-1-0) power play and then a bad penalty late all but killed any hope of a miracle comeback as the Trojans escaped with a 5-4 Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference win.
“They got three power-play goals and that was basically the difference tonight,” said Kings assistant coach Cody Reynolds. “It was a hard-fought game, our guys battled extremely hard, proud of the way our guys played tonight, it was a tough game, we just didn’t get the result we wanted.”
Riley Paterson scored twice for SAIT while Dalton Olsen, Sam Lawson and Brenden Forbes added singles and Austin Smith made 39 saves in net for the win.
RDC replied with goals from Joel Topping, Clay Petrie, Greg Lamoureux and Doug Jones. Kraymer Barnstable made 40 saves in the loss.
The Kings managed to fight their way back from two goals down to tie twice during the game.
SAIT opened the scoring at 10:13 on the power play with Olsen’s goal and then 1:17 later Lawson made it 2-0 for the Trojans, tipping a point shot over Barnstable from in close.
But Topping got RDC back into the contest at 13:06, blasting a loose puck past Smith from the point.
Petrie then tied the game at 2-2 at 3:42 of the second period shovelling home a rebound off a Riley Point shot from the side boards.
The Trojans bounced back, as Paterson scored twice at 8:15 and then 12:36 on the power play to re-establish a two-goal lead.
Again the Kings responded, just as the game was turning chippy.
With RDC on a power play, Riley Simpson was rocked behind the SAIT net, but the Kings regrouped outside the Trojans’ zone, and Lamoureux scored on a tic-tac-toe passing play at 14:33, to cut the score to 4-3.
Less than a minute later and tempers boiled over as RDC’s Pat Martens and SAIT’s Cody Castro dropped the gloves. Unfortunately for Martens, the linesman held him back as Castro got in a few free shots before they were able to get on their own, but the damage had already been done.
The Kings then tied the game up again on another power-play goal, this time by Jones at 3:21 of the third period, as he chipped a beautiful feed from Nick Bell past Smith.
“I’m proud of the way the guys handled it tonight, they didn’t shut down, they kept going, kept going, kept going, it was good to see,” said Reynolds.
But it was all for not.
At 13:35 the Kings’ Ryan Hoult was called for boarding, and 20 seconds later Forbes tipped a screened point shot past Barnstable.
With 20 seconds left and the goalie pulled, the wheels fell off completely. As the ref was calling coincidental minors on the Trojans’ Mike Puddifant for cross checking and the Kings’ Simpson for holding deep in the SAIT zone, Topping was called for unsportsmanlike conduct as he chirped the ref. Not only did this give the Trojans the man advantage, but it moved the face off all the way back into Kings’ zone. RDC never got the puck beynd their blue-line again.
The Trojans finished 3-for-4 on the power play while the Kings were 2-for-3.
The two teams will battle again tonight in Calgary at 7 p.m.
• The RDC Queens clinched second place in women’s hockey with a 4-3 win over SAIT on Friday in Calgary, sweeping this week’s series with the Trojans. Kaylea McMurtry, Rachael Hoppins, Jayna Kitchen and Nikki Connor scored for RDC while Moriah Andrews stopped 18 of 21 shots for the win. Cora Sutton scored twice for SAIT while Lindsey Rose got their other goal and Cheyenne Eagle stopped 22 of 26 shots in the loss.
jaldrich@www.reddeeradvocate.com