Eagles force Game 7 versus Dragons

How many times can a fighter get back up off the canvas and keep on punching.

The Canmore Eagles have bounced back from three knock downs to post three victories and are now looking to land their own knockout punch on the Drumheller Dragons when the two teams meet at the Canmore Recreation Centre on Tuesday, April 1 (Game time is 7 p.m.)

Drumheller won Games 1, 3 and 5 while Canmore won Games 2, 4 and 6. The latest victory, a 6-3 win at the Drumheller Memorial Arena on Sunday (March 30) afternoon.

Even though each team has won twice in the other’s barn, Canmore’s regular-season efforts have been rewarded with home ice for Game 7 for a second place finish in the Alberta Junior Hockey League South Division, while Drumheller finished in third place.

Canmore’s season was on the line after losing 2-1 at the Canmore Recreation Centre on Friday (March 28) giving Drumheller a 3-2 series lead in this best-of-seven divisional semifinal.

Drumheller’s power play proved the undoing of the Eagles in Game 5 – just as it did in Game 3 – as Tristan Payne scored his fourth goal of the series at 10:45 of the opening period and Kai Matthew (his second goal) in the second period. Between the two Dragons’ goals, Eagle Ethan Look scored his first of the series, to knot the game at 1-1.

While Drumheller went 2-for-5 with the man advantage in the game to go 6-for-29 in the series, Canmore went 0-for-5 on the power play and were 0-for-30 after five games. The inability to score in man-advantage situations put the Eagles on the brink of elimination heading into Game 6.

Canmore did outshot Drumheller 30-19 on Friday, with the familiar goaltending duel between the Eagles’ Alex Scheiwiller and the Dragons’ Sean Cootes on display.

So, on Sunday, with the possibility of their season ending in Drumheller, Canmore threw a trio of haymakers at the Dragons in the opening period and never looked back in posting a decisive decision.

Rookie Hudson Landmark (1), who entered this series in Game 3, landed the first punch just 62 seconds after the opening puck drop. That was followed by Tavynn Schlaht (2) wrapping in a shot on a swing around the net at 9:05 followed by Look’s (2) one-timer at 19:37.

Look’s second goal in as many games ended a 0-for-32 power-play streak for Canmore, with players and the many enthusiastic fans that made the trek to Drumheller via the fan bus or their own volition cheered emphatically in palpable relief that the biggest monkey hanging on the collective backs of these players was finally thrown off.

Bradley Gallo (3) would get a goal back, on a Dragons’ power play at 14:45 of the second period. That was answered 80 seconds later by Eagles’ rookie Wil Lutic (1).

In the third period, Cohen Daoust (2) gave the Eagles a four-goal lead at 1:34. The final three goals came in the final three minutes with the Dragons emptying the goal for an extra attacker. Drumheller rookie Easton Daneault (1) scored to make it a three-goal difference again, followed by a goal into the empty net by Canmore’s Owen Jones (4), and Dragon Lauchlan Kozicky (2) completed the scoring.

Allthough it may have looked a nervous ending as Drumheller threw some heavy punches in the late going, Canmore was willing to absorb those punches to stay the course to a Game 6 decision that will see these two teams going the distance in this absorbing series.

Look, a third-year forward who has come into his own in the back half of this season and the playoffs, finished with a three-point game (1G-2A).

As good as the Canmore forwards were delivering scoring punches in this contest, the defence was equally impressive in fending off Drumheller’s attempted scoring blows, especially Jaren Brinson and Nolan Kazeil, two of eight 2004-born players on this team staring at the possibility of their last junior eligible game.

Drumheller outshot Canmore 28-24, including 12-2 in the third period. It was Scheiwiller versus Cootes in the goaltending duel.

Canmore would finish 1-for-5 on the power play and is now 1-for-35 in this series, while Drumheller was 1-for-4 and is now 7-for-33.

The winner of this series will take on the No. 1 Calgary Canucks in the South Division final, which will open in Calgary on Friday, April 4. The Canucks dispatched the Camrose Kodiaks with a 5-2 win in Game 5 played this past Friday.

As for this coming Friday, the North Division final will begin with the No. 1 Whitecourt Wolverines taking on the No. 2 Grande Prairie Storm. Whitecourt won Game 5 of its series 2-1 in overtime to knockout the Fort McMurray Oil Barons. The Storm had earlier swept the Lloydminster Bobcats.

Rhett Dekowny is Canmore’s leading scorer in this series with seven points (2G-5A), however he has been held to just one assist over the past four games.

Jones has five points (4G-1A), while at four points are Look (2G-2A), Daoust (2G-2A) and Kazeil (4A).

Kai Matthew leads all Drumheller scorers with seven points (2G-5A) while at six points are Payne (4G-2A) and Brec Christenson (1G-5A).

Kayden Rawji, another Eagle in his last year of junior eligibility, drew back into the lineup on Sunday after missing Games 4 and 5. Rookie Cole Wadsworth was the forward to sit out Sunday’s victory after playing the previous five games. Fourth-year defenceman Emanuel Hudson did not dress for the third successive game. Rookie defenceman Christian Luke has yet to appear in the playoffs.

Canmore has played four Game 7s in its history which dates back to the 1995-96 season. The first was in 2002 when the Eagles finished first overall. They beat the Calgary Royals on home ice in the quarter-final round followed that same year with a Game 7 loss on home ice to the Grande Prairie Storm in the semifinal round. It would be 2020 before another Game 7 came around with a loss on the road to the Camrose Kodiaks in a division quarter-final. Then last year, the Eagles lost to Whitecourt on the road in the semifinal round.

Drumheller, which has been around since 2003, has featured in one Game 7, losing to the Blackfalds Bulldogs on the road in 2023.

EAGLES NEST: Canmore Eagles’ home playoff tickets are available at canmoreeagles.ca/tickets. … If you can’t attend in person, you can watch Eagles’ games as well as the rest of the AJHL online, along with much more live and on demand hockey, through a FloSports subscription available at flohockey.tv.