For the second time this season the Okotoks Bisons had the defending champs chasing its tail.
Okotoks put on a clinic in getting under the skin of its opponent to complete the season series sweep over the North Division kingpin Mountainview Colts with a 5-1 trouncing Sunday at Murray Arena.
“We just had to battle hard against them,” said Okotoks forward Michael Stach, a talented antagonist. “Get in their heads and throw them off their game to do what we could do.
“The lead did help. We got on them quick.”
Sixty-five seconds to be exact.
Okotoks captain Mark McLeod whacked in a rebound just over a minute from puck-drop to give the hosts the early jolt. Leading scorer Josh McCulloch then showcased his wizardry with the puck, dancing around a defender at the blueline before unleashing a shot into the back of the net.
Netminder Matt McDonald closed the door on a clear-cut breakaway late in the frame to preserve the two-goal advantage in what was a harbinger of things to come.
The Calgary shot stopper put up a brick wall in the middle frame, stopping four breakaways on a Colts team that tends to score at will in the Heritage Junior Hockey League. McDonald made 56 saves in the win.
“Good goaltending saved our backs at good times,” Stach said. “He made huge saves and we had to go down on the other end and do some work for him.”
Okotoks earned some much-needed insurance early in the third act when McCulloch, Spencer Bender and Kyle Becker connected on a three-way passing play with the latter finishing it on a spinning backhander.
McLeod swiftly added his second of the contest, using time and space in the slot to slip a backhand five-hole to make it a four-goal contest before shenanigans took over.
“We knew they like to bring it up the middle so we kept them to the outside as much as we could,” said Bisons forward Kyle Dunville. “We knew what they were going to come with.
“We knew how to settle down and play our game.”
The Colts, who don’t lose very often as the number-one team in the North, didn’t take too kindly to being on the wrong end of the scoreline.
Two of the Mountainview coaches got the boot for arguing with the referees while a number of Colts players got sucked into exchanges with Bison players more than happy to point at the scoreboard.
“Our line, we were kind of taking the edge off their game,” Dunville added. “Smiling, doing that chirpy stuff me and Stach like to do then we have big Ryan McLean playing on our line, he definitely backs us up being the smaller guys.”
Brennan Fuoco rounded out the scoring on a late two-man advantage as Okotoks picked up two points to wrap a weekend of considerable highs and lows.
Okotoks suffered its most lopsided loss of the season in a 9-2 dismantling on the road in Stettler on Friday.
“It was just a dysfunctional game. Just a gong show,” Stach added. “All the boys were embarrassed and frustrated and we had to use that in (Sunday’s) game and use that as momentum and get us fired up to go.”
On the heels of a 13 game winning streak being snapped the weekend prior, the loss was Okotoks’ first in regulation since November.
Better now than later with the playoffs on the horizon.
“That was a good wake-up call for the boys,” Dunville said. “We can’t be winning that many games and thinking we’re going to run over small teams like that. We have to always be playing our hardest and working for the best.”
Okotoks (24-9-1) can now finish no higher than second in the South Division as the Cochrane Generals wrapped up the top-seed earlier in the week.
With four games left on the docket, Okotoks owns a seven-point edge on the third-place Coaldale Copperheads and need just one win to lock up the second seed.
“The first thing is to try and get second place and this win helps us a lot,” Stach said. “This puts us in pretty good hands. Just a few more games to go playoffs and we will see how the run goes.”
Okotoks is on the road for a date with Cochrane on Jan. 28 and a trip to Medicine Hat the following afternoon. The Bisons next and final home date is Feb. 3 versus the Banff Academy Bears.
For more information on the team go to okotoksbisons.com
