Two out of three ain’t bad at all.
The Okotoks Oilers’ playoff-like approach to a three games in three days road trip paid off in spades as Okotoks came home with victories over Whitecourt and Grande Prairie before dropping its matinee finale to the defending-champion Spruce Grove Saints.
“That was our goal to get at least two out of three,” said Oilers head coach James Poole. “We almost treat is a best-of-three series and when you get that first one all of a sudden you’ve got some confidence the rest of the weekend.
“You’re chasing uphill if you lose that first one.”
Okotoks insured that wouldn’t happen on Friday.
The coach called the 4-3 victory over Whitecourt, a team entering the contest on a six-game winning streak, the top performance of the weekend.
“We played a really good road game, had compete level from every player, our goaltending was solid,” he said. “We were unlucky on some scoring chances not to win that one by a few more than just one.”
Energetic winger Nolan Thompson led the way with a two-goal, three-point effort along with tallies from Colin O’Neill and Carter Huber.
Okotoks carried momentum into Saturday’s 5-2 win over Grande Prairie, a convincing scoreline that could have been bigger for the visitors.
“We hit about five posts, two or three open nets that we missed in order to really stretch that lead – it could have been a runaway game,” Poole said. “We let them hang around a little bit too long.”
Rookie centre Cooper Page scored a pair in the victory. O’Neill, Thompson and Trey Degraaf also tickled the twine. Riley Morris made 25 saves for his second win of the weekend.
The Oil then saw the winning ways halted on Sunday where bus legs caught up to them in a 3-0 defeat to the Saints – proverbial favourites for the league title.
“We really played with them for the first half of the game and then we seemed to lose our legs,” Poole said. “The weekend caught up with us and unfortunately we couldn’t skate with them.”
Thompson was top scorer on the weekend with three goals and four points for the Oil providing much needed secondary scoring for the top-line of O’Neill, Degraaf and Matt McNair.
“(Thompson) has perhaps been our best forward over the past month and just been a little snake-bit around the net,” Poole said. “Finally, he’s starting to get rewarded for it and it’s nice to see the puck starting to go in for him.”
Home from the road, Okotoks settles in at home for back-to-back dates with the Sherwood Park Crusaders and Calgary Mustangs on Nov. 20-21.
Both games are 7 p.m. starts at Pason Centennial Arena.
The Oil lost their first meeting with the Crusaders on the road in late October and haven’t played the basement dwelling Stangs since their victorious home opener in September.
“Looking at the ages of every team we realize we’re the youngest team in the league and Sherwood Park is the oldest,” Poole said. “They’re probably the biggest team in the league and I thought it caught our guys off guard when we first played them up in their rink.
“Another good week of practice and building up to what’s going to be a very good test. Hopefully that confidence level we’ve had at home carries over to the result we need.”
