The St. Albert Merchants are on the brink of another early playoff elimination in the Capital Junior B Hockey League.
For the second straight year, the Stony Plain Flyers are poised as the underdogs to topple the Merchants in the deciding game at Akinsdale Arena.
The best-of-three west division qualifying round wraps up tonight at 8 p.m. between the third-place Merchants (24-12-2) and sixth-place Flyers (11-23-4).
The Merchants won the series opener 5-2 Friday in St. Albert and lost game two 6-1 Sunday at Glenn Hall Centennial Arena.
In league play, the Merchants outscored the Flyers 17-13 in three wins and one overtime loss.
The Flyers (23-12-3) upset the Merchants (32-6), the No. 1 playoff seed, in the best-of-five quarterfinals last year. All three wins by the host team for provincials were recorded in St. Albert.
The Merchants face another must-win game after the Flyers pumped in five unanswered goals Sunday to even the series. After a scoreless first period, Thomas Rotundo knotted it at one on the power play at 16:15 of the middle frame and the Flyers replied with three goals, including a pair 11 seconds apart in the last minute of the period.
The Flyers made it 5-1 with 4:45 remaining and their last goal was scored by Kaiden Tobin, his second of the night, on the power play with 10 seconds to go.
Courtney Lane, a standout for the Flyers between the pipes in last year’s series, stopped 43 shots and Ty Clelland of the Merchants posted 36 saves.
Both teams served 26 minutes in penalties apiece.
The playoff lid-lifter was tied at two, when Matt Havens connected at 12:29 of the second and Casey Reid deposited the team’s fourth goal with 53 seconds left in the period.
It was 2-1 after 20 minutes on goals by Taylor Lotoski and Brenden Passek and in the third Jared Kwasney closed out the scoring.
Team captain Dan Rombough finished with two assists. The defenceman was among 13 Merchants to register at least a point in the win.
Rombough is also one of six returning Merchants on the roster and is joined by Clelland, Reid at forward and Kwasney on the blueline as the team’s over-age (21-year-old) players
Clelland faced 29 shots and Lane was tested 38 times.
On the power play, the Flyers were 0-for-10 and the Merchants were 0-for-3. The Merchants were tagged for 36 penalty minutes, compared to 14 minutes for the Flyers.
The Gazette reached out to a couple of Merchants’ players for comments on the series, but phone calls were not returned by press time.
If the Merchants prevail tonight, they will play the Edmonton Mustangs (28-6-3), the second-place team in the west, in the quarter-finals. Game one would go Friday at Bill Hunter Arena and game two is 8 p.m. Sunday in St. Albert.
The teams split four games in the regular season.
