The St. Albert Merchants hit the jackpot at the expense of the Beverly Warriors.
The fifth straight win and eighth in nine games for the Merchants (10-5) also ended a seven-game losing streak over two seasons against the defending Founders Cup champions and 2018 playoff finalists in the Capital Junior B Hockey League.
Beverly (13-3) also swept the Merchants in two consecutive quarter-finals.
“It was huge. We all knew what we were coming into with Beverly being the number one team in the league,” said left-winger Bryce Sturm of Friday’s 8-6 statement victory at Jarome Iginla Arena.
“We can all agree they are definitely our arch rival,” Sturm added. “We played them early in the year and they beat us (8-3) in their home rink and coming into our home rink we all knew it was going to be different.
"We went out there and had some fun. Everyone just came together and it was nice to put a win on that team.”
Goals by Stuart Dovey (power play), Ryan Cooper and Zach Giacobbo during a 1:43-minute span in the second period turned the tide in the 4-4 affair as the Merchants found the back of the net five times while outshooting Beverly 15-11 in the frame for the 7-5 advantage.
“We just didn’t back down at all. We played a full 60 minutes and we knew exactly what we had to do. We were physical and every single guy on the ice was playing their role and when you do that it leads to huge success especially against a good team like that,” Sturm said.
The opening 20 minutes ended with Beverly capitalizing twice on the power play during a three-goal outburst after goals 62 seconds apart by Peter Corrigan and Noah Fayad early in the contest.
The Merchants regained the lead in the second with Dovey and Sturm (power play) before Beverly pulled even at the 8:52 mark.
Down 7-4, Beverly chipped away at the deficit with goals at 17:26 of the second and 7:26 of the third before Corrigan potted the insurance marker with 1:57 to play.
Dovey led all scorers with four points while Sturm, Cooper, Giacobbo, and Cole Gupta picked up two assists apiece.
Shots were 20-11 in the third and 46-37 overall for Beverly as Brett Akins improved to 4-0 with a 4.07 GAA and .890 save percentage.
Akins is one of four netminders to start for the Merchants (4.47 GAA) this season.
“Brett Akins had a stellar game. He played unreal. He’s a big part of our success,” Sturm said.
The Merchants struggled out of the gate while going 2-4 with three losses in a row before flicking the switch.
“It’s been interesting for sure,” Sturm said. “The way the year has been going on we’ve been starting to get a lot closer as a team and practices seem a lot more high paced than before. A lot of the guys are just a lot more excited right now coming to the rink. They want to go out there and compete even harder than before and it’s the reason for our success right now.
“It’s been awesome.”
The Merchants have also been lighting it up offensively while averaging eight goals a game during the five in a row winning streak.
“We’re becoming a super high scoring team and 100 per cent I believe it’s going to keep going that way if we just keep doing the same things,” said Sturm of the Merchants averaging a second-best 5.53 goals per game behind Beverly’s league-high 5.88.
“Since the start of the season Zach (Rodda) the head coach has stressed shot, shot, shot. It's super important and honestly we started to finally realize the more shots we put on net then the more goals that will go. It's not about being too pretty, it’s any scoring chance you get you put the puck on net and good things will happen especially when you’re with great linemates and everyone is doing their thing out there. If you fire anything towards the net there is going to be one, two, three guys crashing the net hard and the puck will just find its way in.
“We also have really good set lines right now. Each player is playing extremely well with their linemates and it just seems to click the way it should be.”
Terrific trio
The Sturm-Dovey-Cooper trio is arguably the hottest line combination in the CJHL. Sturm is tied for second in the scoring race with 30 points while Cooper, the centreman, and Dovey share fifth place with 29 apiece.
Dovey is the team leader in goals with 14, Cooper has 11 in 12 games and Sturm has generated 10.
“It’s something new Zach wanted to try out and it’s nice to mix things up sometimes,” Sturm said of the line’s formation about 10 games ago. “Playing with Cooper and Dovey has been unreal. It’s been really good for all three of us. Each of us know where we’re going to be at all times on the ice and it’s just like all three of us have the same mind. It’s insane. It blows me away how great we can play together and it makes the game a lot more fun as well just being able to make those easy rushes up the ice and getting a good chance on net or getting a goal. It’s nice to have that success as a line to help out the team and it's even better when the other three lines are doing the exact same thing to help out.”
Sturm is on pace to surpass his team-high 22 goals and 42 points in 37 games last season in his Merchants’ debut after spending two seasons with the Creston Valley Thunder Cats in the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League following midget AA stints with the 2014/15 St. Albert Source for Sports Crusaders and 2015/16 St. Albert Blues.
“It’s a team game so playing with Cooper and Dovey they seem to make it really easy for me to get some points, said Sturm, 21, an over-ager on the Merchants along with captain Andy Barr and netminder Josh Dechaine. "Honestly, coming into this year from last year I just wanted to up my game even more and do even better. I had a slow start, but it's nice to start finding my game again. I just want to keep producing the best I can for myself, but most importantly for the team. Working hard in practice and getting that good chemistry with my linemates just goes a long way and it's been working really well for me.”
Upcoming games
Tonight the Merchants can jump past the Stony Plain Flyers (10-4-1) into third place in the west division with a victory against the North Edmonton Red Wings (11-3-1). Faceoff is 8 p.m. at Londonderry Arena.
“We know the Red Wings are a tough team, they’re top three in the league right now, and when they came into our barn last time (5-3 setback Oct. 4) we played an amazing game against them and then just kind of lost it in the third period (with three unanswered goals by the Red Wings) so I’m not worried about that game. I'm super positive that if we play like we did against Beverly we'll put up seven, eight, nine goals against them. They have a really good goalie, but the way we’ve been playing we can make them look like a bottom three team instead of a top three team,” Sturm said.
Saturday the Merchants tangled with the Morinville Jets (2-13) at 5:30 p.m. at Morinville Leisure Centre.
The first of four rivalry games with the Jets this season was 3-2 Merchants on Ryan Deets’ power-play winner in the third on Sept. 27 at St. Albert.
The Jets are winless in four games and are 1-6 at Landrex Arena.
“We always have a fun game with them. There’s a lot of energy in those kind of games, but it will be interesting. It will be nice to play them in their new arena and we'll see what that’s like and I think it's going to work out well for us,” Sturm said.
