Tyler Maltby’s second-period hat trick helped the Sherwood Park Crusaders to an 8-5 win over the Canmore Eagles in Alberta Junior Hockey League action Friday night.
Maltby, who led the AJHL in goals last season with 41, scored two power-play goals and a shorthanded marker and now has a league-leading 11 on the season. He also and set up one goal in the middle period as the Crusaders rallied from a 3-1 deficit to take a 5-4 after two periods.
The Eagles trailed 1-0 after the first period and rallied to make it 5-5 on Adam Tisdale’s second goal of the game at 2:21 of the third period, but the Crusaders scored the game’s final three goals to pull out the victory before 450 fans at the Canmore Recreation Centre.
“I thought we played well. We scored five on a good goalie [Sherwood Park netminder Zac Klassen],” said Andrew Milne, Eagles GM and head coach. “Our penalty kill wasn’t very good and our discipline let us down.”
Sherwood Park was 4-for-7 with the man advantage while Canmore went 2-for-10.
Canmore outshot Sherwood Park 40-23, but had a 13-4 edge in shots after one period and outshot the Crusaders 22-6 in the second period. Ryan Bontorin went all the way in goal for the Eagles.
Also scoring for Sherwood Park were Chase Toronto, Merrit Osytko, Ben McLeod, Ty Readman and Brandon Wallis.
Scoring for Canmore, Tisdale doubled his season total to four, Logan Ferguson, also scored twice and now has nine, with Canmore Coy Prevost scoring his second of the season.
With the win, Sherwood Park is 5-5-0 with two of those wins coming against Canmore.
Canmore is now 4-4-1 on the season and heads to Olds to take on the Grizzlys on Saturday night (7 p.m., Olds Sportsplex).
The head coach knows where the improvement is needed to get back in the win column.
“We have to address some issues on the defensive side and we are going to need Ryan [Bontorin] to be stronger in the net,” said Milne.
EAGLES NEST: Matt Forchuk had two assists and now is tied for the league lead in points at 19 (6G-13A) with White Court’s Bryson Treptow (10G-6A). … Kyle Pauls and Cole Noble each played their first games of the season, with Jonas Gordon, Mitch Zambon and Nolan Kurylo sitting out. … Canmore’s next home game is Thursday versus the Whitecourt Wolverines (7 p.m., Canmore Recreation Centre).
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