The Canmore Eagles extended their losing streak to two games on Thursday night as the Drumheller Dragons scored the game’s last four goals to hand the Eagles a 6-3 loss in Alberta Junior Hockey League action in Drumheller.
The Eagles, who also dropped a 4-3 decision to the Calgary Canucks on Tuesday night, now sport an overall record of 22-17-3 and find themselves in fourth-place in the AJHL Southern Division standings with 47 points. They now trail both the Dragons and the Okotoks Oilers by four points in the battle for second-place, and only lead the hard charging fifth-place Camrose Kodiaks by a single point.
In last night’s loss to Drumheller, the Eagles received goals from Lane Olson (4th), Kurt Hildebrand (5th) and Simon Philp (14th) while netminder Ryan Ferguson took the loss to drop his record to 15-8-2. The Dragons outshot the Eagles by a wide 30-19 margin.
“We played a decent game but didn’t get enough pucks to the net and didn’t have any puck luck,” said Eagle’s Head Coach and General Manager Andrew Milne, who welcomed back defenceman John Stevens and Jakob Lavoie to his lineup after both players had been sidelined with injuries since Dec. 21. “It was good to have those two players back on the ice as they certainly shore up our back end. They both had good games but they’ll get even better when they get a few more games under their belt.”
Canmore will try to get back in the win column on Friday night (Jan. 10) when they host the visiting Drayton Valley Thunder (15-22-4) at the Canmore Recreation Centre. Game time is 7 pm.
In their only meeting this season, the Thunder defeated the Eagles 5-2 in Drayton Valley on October 18th.
Canmore currently sports the best home record (16-4-1) of any club in the Southern Division, while Drayton Valley has recorded the AJHL’s worst road record going 4-14-3 on the season.
Drayton Valley is also at the bottom of the AJHL’s “Goals For” versus “Goals Against” statistic with a minus 42 after 41 games. Canmore is minus 8 on the season.
“We’ve lost two in a row and we need to turn our fortunes around in a hurry,” said Milne. “The Thunder have already beaten us this year, so we better not take anything for granted. We are also heading out on the road for three straight games after the Drayton Valley game, so Friday’s home game is a big one for us. Our goal is to secure home ice advantage for at least the first-round of the playoffs, so every game is critical for us now.”
NOTEBOOK – Eagle’s forward Connor Wilson, who is second in club scoring with 38 points, played his 100th AJHL game last night. . . The AJHL final trade deadline is Friday night (Jan. 10) at 10 pm. . . The Eagles have seven 20-year-olds on their roster but can only dress six 20-year-olds on any given night.. . .Luke Simpson, who was named the Eagle’s “Star of the Game” last night, has recorded 11 points in 11 games since returning from a dislocated elbow injury. . . The Eagles have just eight regular season home games remaining.
