The St. Albert Merchants have the horses to go the distance in the race to the finish line.
“A lot of teams won’t be able to touch us with the amount of speed we have up front,” said Jake Behiels, head coach of the 1-1 Merchants in the Capital Junior B Hockey League. “We have a lot of players that are extremely quick with great hands, we’ve just got to use that speed to our advantage.”
Ignited by Ryan Cooper’s three goals and six points, the Merchants showed flashes of offensive flair in Sunday’s 4-2 decision against the Spruce Grove Regals at Akinsdale Arena and Wednesday’s 8-6 loss to the Beverly Warriors at Clareview Arena.
“We have a lot of offence skill and talent and if we focus on keeping the puck out of our net and playing defence first we’ll continue to win hockey games,” Behiels said. “If we get that puck deep and use our forecheck then we’ll be getting that puck most of the time and that is just by using our speed and creating space for one another.”
The first of two power-play goals by Stephen Cretain opened the scoring 16:28 into the contest and his second tied it at two with 34 seconds left in the second.
In the third, Cooper struck on the power play at 3:25 and assisted on Mason Kenny’s goal at 17:12 for his third point.
The Merchants were outshot 16-7 in the final frame and 35-26 in total as Ryen Papirny stood tall in net.
“It was a character win. We were pretty close with them all game and Papirny obviously played really well,” Behiels said.
The next game against Beverly the Merchants were out-scored 6-3 during a third-period meltdown.
Cooper’s second of the night, a power-play effort 44 seconds into the third, put the Merchants up by two.
Jake Mercier restored the team’s two-goal lead at 5:16.
Beverly answered with a pair 47 seconds apart and Cam Mazur put the Merchants back on top at 6-5 at 9:17.
Beverly tied at 16:34 on the power play, pumped in the winner at 18:38 and capped off the rally with 57 seconds to play.
Shots were 17-16 Beverly in the third and 42-41 overall for the Merchants. In net was Ethan Crotty.
“It just seemed like we had a couple of mental lapses and unfortunately let them get back into the game after we did our best to stay close with them and battle with them,” Behiels said. “They just outworked us. They won pretty well every battle down low in front of our net and unfortunately we just couldn’t hold them off much longer.”
Cooper evened the score at one in the first and the Merchants led 3-2 after 40 minutes on goals by Liam Thomas and Daniel Spatafora, a power-play strike.
“The first period we came out a little slower than we’d like but we managed to hang in there,” Behiels said.
Matt Havens, the team’s leading scorer last season with 27 goals and 61 points in only 28 games, racked up four assists for five in two games.
Overall, Behiels was happy how the Merchants performed to kick off the season.
“It was a little sloppy in some areas but that’s to be expected in the first couple of games,” said the first-year Merchants’ bench boss. “We’ve just got to get back to work in the practices. The guys have to practice like they play and that stuff will all iron itself out.
“We’ve just got to bear down in our zone and win those battles in the corners and being a defence first team we’ll take care of scoring goals for sure. That’s not something we’re definitely worried about.”
The next home game is Sunday against the Founders Cup champion North Edmonton Red Wings at 8 p.m. and Papirny will start against his former team.
Friday the Merchants host the rival Morinville Jets at 8 p.m.
The Merchants have around 26 players still in camp but will drop down to 23 or 24 by November at the latest.
