The Money Men are four wins away from their second Founders Cup final and provincial berth in three years after their second series clincher in overtime in the Capital Junior B Hockey League.
The winner of the best-of-seven semifinal between the St. Albert Merchants and Wetaskiwin Icemen will play the North Edmonton Red Wings or Fort Saskatchewan Hawks in the best-of-five Founders Cup and the two finalists advance to provincials, March 31 to April 3 in Red Deer.
Two years ago, the Merchants lost the fifth and deciding game in the final to the Hawks in St. Albert and finished fourth at provincials.
“The biggest similarity is we have a lot of depth, just like that year,” said assistant captain Thomas Rotundo, the OT hero in Friday’s 5-4 thriller against the Edmonton Mustangs in game four in the best-of-five round of eight at Akinsdale Arena.
“We have a lot of good players. We’ve got four good lines, our defence is really good and we’re getting great goaltending from Ty (Clelland) and Ryan (Papirny), when he's playing.”
Rotundo, forward Casey Reid, a fourth-year Merchant, and captain Dan Rombough and Jared Kwasney on defence remain from the 2014 Merchants that finished 45-11-1 and they are also among six returnees from last year’s team that bowed out in the quarter-finals while going 34-9 overall. Both years the Merchants placed first as the Challenge Cup pennant winners.
“To be where we are right now says a lot about our team. Honestly, I don’t think people had expected anything from us this year with not many guys coming back but we have a lot of character on this team and all these young guys are really buying in and just playing hard,” Rotundo said. “The will to win is there right now.”
The Merchants travel to Wetaskiwin tonight for game one at 7:30 p.m. and Friday they host the Icemen at 8 p.m. Game three is 6:30 p.m. Sunday in Wetaskiwin and game four is next Wednesday at 8 p.m. in St. Albert.
In league play, the Icemen (24-10-4) tied for first in the east division and the Merchants (24-12-2) placed third in the west standings.
The Icemen rallied from a 2-1 deficit in their series with the Beaumont Chiefs (22-14-2) with victories of 11-5 in Beaumont and 7-3 in Wetaskiwin.
The Merchants swept the Icemen in league play by scores of 3-2 Nov. 1 in Wetaskiwin and 2-1 on Rombough’s OT marker Jan. 21 in St. Albert.
“We’re playing a team that’s big, physical and fast,” Rotundo said. “We know what’s coming at us and we’re going to be ready for it.”
Rotundo, 21, punched the Merchants’ ticket into the semifinals with 4:15 left in the first extra frame and Reid the set-up man on the play.
“Cam (Mazur) dropped the puck to me on the wall and I just pushed it over to Casey in the middle of the ice – he actually got an assist on the play but the ref didn’t give it to him – so Casey brought the puck behind the net and whenever he has the puck you just go to the front of the net with your stick on the ice so I just got open in front of the net and he gave me a great pass and I just put it into the open net,” Rotundo said. “It was a great play by Casey.”
The Merchants were in danger of blowing a 2-0 series lead after losing game three 8-5 and the pivotal game five slated for Sunday at Bill Hunter Arena before Rotundo’s goal rocked the house in the old Akinsdale barn.
“It was a pretty good feeling, especially on home ice too with the fans. It made it a lot more exciting,” Rotundo said. “We came back from 3-0 (in the first period) and it was a pretty good effort by our team so to be able to finish it off like that was pretty cool.”
It’s the second consecutive series the Merchants sealed the deal in sudden death after Mazur’s double OT heroics in the winner-take-all game three in the west division qualifying round against the Stony Plain Flyers in St. Albert.
“Both games were very intense and they were both up and down with a lot of momentum going back and forth so it was a pretty similar atmosphere, especially with it being on home ice as well,” Rotundo said.
The Mustangs threatened to run away from the Merchants with three goals in the opening 16:08 minutes, but Krys Kraychy cued the comeback with 1:14 left in the period.
Mike Bruni (power play) and Brenden Passek struck in the second and Mazur put the Merchants on top with 12:01 remaining in regulation time.
The Mustangs scored shorthanded with 6:07 to knot it at four.
“To start the game off I think everyone felt lots of pressure being on home ice. We wanted to finish it off because we didn’t want it to go to game five, so it kind of maybe froze us a little bit in the first half of the period or period there but once we got our feet underneath us we kind of took over the game,” Rotundo said. “That first goal by Krys Kraychy was big because before that we had nothing. It was his first game back from a pretty bad concussion so to see him score a goal there kind of got the team up a little bit and then we came out in the second period just flying and we went on to score to make it 3-2.”
Mason Kenny and Matt Havens picked up two assists apiece as 11 Merchants collected at least a point in the victory.
The Merchants dominated the shot count at 18-5 in the third and 5-3 in overtime for a margin of 42-28.
Clelland (5-2, 3.81 GAA) made his seventh-straight playoff start and Garrett Storms (1-3, 4.85 GAA) of the Mustangs went the distance.
Rotundo’s goal was his third of the playoffs and sixth point after posting 18 goals and 34 points in 32 games.
The right winger was on the opposite wing for the OT winner on a slightly different line combination.
“For two games I was with (Taylor) Lotoski and (Jake) Mercier against Stony and for that game three it was myself and Lotoski and Casey and we’ve stuck together ever since (but) myself, Casey and Cam got put on a line for a shift and it worked out well,” said the midget AAA product of the KC Pats and accounting student at MacEwan University.
