A short bench paid off with two points as the Money Men banked their sixth-straight win in the Capital Junior B Hockey League.
Five defencemen, eight forwards and 34 saves by Ty Clelland was all the St. Albert Merchants needed to defeat the hometown Sherwood Park Knights 5-4 Tuesday.
Exams forced the Merchants to ice a thin lineup.
“It was a pretty tiring game but we did a pretty good job of making the most of the situation we had and it was just nice to walk away with a win,” said defenceman Jed Groenenboom, who contributed two goals to the cause.
Casey Reid’s 13th goal and third point of the night was the game winner with 7:34 to play.
The Knights outscored the Merchants 2-1 in the third with the second goal coming with 59 seconds to play.
“We started off the game a little slow. We fell behind 2-0 but at the end of the first we ended up tying it and then we got up on them in the second and we just held on in the third,” said Groenenboom.
His power-play marker with 47 seconds left in the first put the Merchants on the board.
“I just walked to the middle and I saw an open lane and took a shot and went top right,” said the apprentice sprinkler installer for Tech Sprinklers.
Twenty-two seconds later Liam McNamara pulled the Merchants even at two.
In the middle frame, Groenenboom’s third goal and ninth point in 15 games put the Merchants ahead to stay.
“I jumped up in the rush with Casey and Blair (Macuch) and Casey made a pass and I was sitting in front at the end of the rush and I banged it in.”
Mike Roeleveld’s sixth goal in four games and team-leading 17th left the Knights (11-11-2) trailing by two in the second.
Brent McGugan collected two assists and Clelland (13-1, 2.73 GAA) stopped 16 shots in the third as the Merchants improved their CJHL-leading record to 19-5.
The Merchants were coming off a 5-4 victory against the Beverly Warriors (11-8-4) last weekend at Akinsdale Arena.
The home team led 5-2 on Braeden Farge’s 11th and 12th goals of the season to open the scoring, a pair by Roeleveld and Macuch’s fifth.
The Warriors replied with two seconds left in the second and in the third netted their fourth with 14:25 to play.
Farge and Roeleveld had three-point games and Josh Jewell drew two assists.
Shots were 32-30 for the Merchants as Clelland backstopped the team to its third consecutive one-goal decision, starting with captain Dan Rombough’s 4-3 overtime winner against the Edmonton Royals (15-8-2) Nov. 30 at Confederation Arena.
“The last couple of games they’ve been tighter games than we’re used to but we found ways to win, which is good, but we’ve got to figure out how to score more and not let teams get back into the game like what we did against Beverly,” Groenenboom said. “Most of these games we’ll get out to a lead and we’ll be ahead going into the third. We’ll be playing good and then we get a little bit too comfortable sometimes. We forget the basics and they capitalize on some of our mistakes like not getting pucks out like we should especially in the third when we’re tired and that’s kind of where most of the goals are coming from.
“We’ve also been getting a ton of penalties (CJHL-high 893 PIM) and that’s also why we’ve been letting teams back in because we’re so undisciplined. We just keep getting penalty after penalty and we’re constantly on the penalty kill.”
Friday, the Merchants were gunning for a season-high seven wins in a row when they hosted the rival Morinville Jets (15-6-1). The score was unavailable at press time.
“We’ve came together more as a team lately. At the start we were having a little more of a tougher go than we would like,” Groenenboom said of the 5-3 season debut.
The second-year Merchant is one of 15 returnees from the 2014 Founders Cup finalists and fourth-place team at provincials that finished with an 45-11-1 overall record.
“To be one hundred per cent honest this team is pretty much the same team with the exception of four guys,” said Groenenboom, 20. “The difference between last year and this year is not like we were way better last year, the core of our team is pretty much the same this year, but it’s the bounces. If there was a bounce it would always go our way and it seemed like everything came a lot easier. This year we’re playing with a bit more adversity having to work for our bounces and our goals a bit more.”
The third-last game before the Christmas break is Sunday against the Beaumont Chiefs (6-15-3) at 8 p.m. in St. Albert.
“It would be awesome to finish 2014 on a winning streak and on a positive note and continue it on into 2015,” said Groenenboom, a recipient of the John Reid Memorial Award for heart and hustle when he played for the bantam AAA Sabres.
