The Okotoks Oilers closed out pre-season hockey on a winning note. Okotoks defeated the Calgary Mustangs 3-2 on Saturday night at the Scott Seaman Sports Rink and now turns its attention to the first week of the Alberta Junior Hockey League. “I think we’ve learned we’ve still got a lot of work to do, but we’ve come along pretty nicely even over pre-season,” said Oilers rookie centre Carson Dyck, a Lethbridge native. “We’re starting to come together more and we’ve seen the chemistry build. “We played hard. We need to learn how to be a little more disciplined.” Okotoks captain Kyle Gordon opened the scoring with Calgary’s Brady Barclay and Connor Brock answering to close out the opening frame. Oilers centre Kaleb Ergang evened the score on the powerplay in the second stanza and Dyck notched the game winner on the man advantage with 9:54 left in regulation. “(Blake) Wells ditched it down to me, I walked out and slid it five hole,” Dyck said. Okotoks took it to the Calgary Canucks 10-3 the night prior in Davisburg. First-year forward Jack Works had a second period hat-trick, Okotokian Jaevon Buschlen found the back of the net while Mack Stewart, Evan Kaufman, Luke Farthing, Louis Jamernik and Marc Pasemko also scored. The Oil finished the exhibition slate with a 2-2 record. “We had a good pre-season, we’ve never really had a heavy lineup with our numbers of vets,” said Gordon. “Tonight (versus Mustangs) is our most we’ve had, five or six forwards in and both our d-men in.” That’s by design. Okotoks mixed in a ton of youth and numbers throughout the exhibition slate, highlighted by the inclusion of 2002 and 2003 born skaters in the Mustangs tilt. The Oilers brass prioritized giving young players who they have plans for in the future a taste of what it’s like to wear the green-and-gold. “It’s experience, it’s everything,” said Oilers head coach Tyler Deis. “You just want to give guys that opportunity to be part of what we’re doing here and give them those experiences in these games. “It’s a big thing for us to see if this is something that the player wants to do, is be part of what we’re doing.” The youth that are part of this year’s plans have shown well in exhibition. Okotoks will have as many as six new defenceman this year, a rookie goaltender in Brady Parker and a few freshman forwards. “I’m very impressed. Us vets are putting a lot of pressure on them to work hard,” Gordon said. “If they make mistakes I don’t care, if they work hard that’s fine. If they’re trying to do too much and they’re not working hard, that’s when it becomes an issue. But every young guy that we have has to understand that when they come out here they have to work hard.” The veteran group will also have to shoulder a good amount of the responsibilities. “It’s definitely going to be on our forwards to help our young new d-men and on Setoguchi [Ayden Roche-Setoguchi] and Hoon [Kim] also to help out our young new d-men. We’re going to look to them to lead back there. “I don’t know how we’re going to start. I can’t guess it. We have a lot of talent a lot of speed and if the effort is there I think we will be pretty good.” Okotoks begins the 2018-19 campaign in Camrose on Sept. 14 followed by a date with the Grizzlys in Olds the following evening. The Oilers’ home opener is Sept. 21 versus the Kodiaks. “It’s helpful because it gives you time to prepare for that home-opener,” Dyck added. “Obviously you want to be pushing on all fronts for that home-opener so having a few road games to start helps out.” The focus at practice this week will be on tightening up tactics, working on both the neutral zone and defensive zone and making sure the team is better with and without the puck, Deis said. “We’re pretty excited about what’s going on, we feel like we’ve got a strong group here that will be pretty competitive this year,” he said. “And hopefully have some good results.” For more information go to okotoksoilers.ca
