The glass is half full for the St. Albert Gregg Distributors Sabres after finishing the 41st annual John Reid Memorial Tournament with one win.
“We played good. The calibre of this tournament is very high,” said captain Levi Fesyk. “We played well as a team and we’re getting better as a team, too.”
The lone victory in five games was 6-3 against the Los Angeles Kings (1-4), the C playoff finalists.
“We played good overall. We had some good games. We kept in with some pretty good teams and we got one win, which was good. They were a good team,” said left-winger Zakk Makeiff. “We played good as a team in that game and got lots of goals.”
“Everyone was working hard and they were happy to be out there,” Fesyk added of beating Los Angeles in pool play. “We started rolling as a unit and we started scoring goals.”
Losses were 6-3 to the Burnaby Winter Club Bruins (4-2), fourth place in the A playoffs, and 8-3 to the Yale Hockey Academy Lions of Abbotsford (2-3) as the Sabres placed third at 1-2 in the Canadian Brewhouse division of the John Reid pool and 5-1 to the Calgary Bisons (3-2) and 3-2 to the Notre Dame Hounds (2-3) in the B playoff bracket.
“We were getting beat by the score but our team still played hard. Everyone was rolling. They were happy. They were having fun,” Fesyk said.
The Sabres closed out the tournament with a third-period comeback attempt that fell short Sunday at Go Auto Arena.
Down by three goals after 40 minutes, the Sabres rallied on power-play markers by Andon Coles at 6:32 and Makeiff at 19:35.
Shots were 38-26 for the Sabres as Teagan Kendrick went the distance and Notre Dame used both its netminders.
Makeiff’s goal was his seventh of the tournament and third on the power play but was bemoaning a foiled breakaway to put the Sabres on the scoreboard against Notre Dame as his backhand attempt was unsuccessful.
“I wish I would’ve scored,” said the Grade 9 William D. Cuts student.
Makeiff, 14, also tallied twice against Burnaby, Los Angeles and Yale and his eight points tied Liam Cochrane for the most on the Sabres.
“I was shooting, going right to the net and getting into the soft area of the ice,” said Makeiff, who leads the Sabres in goals with 14 in 24 games in the Alberta Major Bantam Hockey League.
Makeiff and Fesyk are returnees from the 2018 AMBHL provincial finalists that qualified in the B playoff bracket after placing third in pool play at 1-2 while going 2-3 overall in last year’s tournament.
“It was about the same,” said Makeiff in comparing the tournament performances of the two teams. “We all worked hard and we just wanted to win and get things done.”
The tournament highlight for the Sabres was the presentation of the annual John Reid Memorial Award for heart and hustle to Fesyk.
“It was a big honour for me,” said the diligent centre. “Some people say it’s the biggest award to get in the tournament.”
The John Reid Memorial Award is bestowed upon a player from the Sabres in the tournament who illustrates the person and hockey player Reid was.
Previous winners were David Saunders, Ethan Edwards, Noah Fayad, Ryan Cooper, Jake Warawa, Josh Perrott, Tyler Mrkonjic, Jake Mykitiuk, Jed Groenenboom, Josh Winquist, Ryan Harrison, Steve Wall, Blaine Bokenfohr and Nate Fleming.
Fesyk, 14, was caught off guard when the announcement was made at Saturday’s tournament banquet.
“My buddy, Cochrane, had to push me a little to go get it. I was a little shook up,” said the Grade 9 Sir George Simpson student. ”I know I played hard but I didn’t know if I was going to get it so I was shocked.”
Fesyk was third in team scoring at the tournament with six points on the strength of five assists anchoring a dangerous line combination with Makeiff and Cochrane.
The trio also rank one-two-three on the Sabres in regular season scoring – 12 goals and 28 points in 22 games for Cochrane, 21 points for Makeiff and 16 assists and 20 points in 23 games for Fesyk – with nine games remaining before the best-of-three semifinals start in the nitro north division.
The Sabres (8-12-4), fourth in the nitro standings, skated into the tournament undefeated in four games as winners of three in a row.
“We’re used to playing against some pretty good teams now so I think we'll do good in our league. We’ve just got to keep getting shots on net and keep capitalizing,” Makeiff said.
League play resumes tonight against the last-place Maple Leafs (3-21-1) at 7:45 p.m. at Akinsdale Arena.
“We’ve got yoga (Monday) so we'll stretch out and get ready for Wednesday’s game,” Fesyk said. “The team that we’re going to be playing against is not as difficult, like as high calibre, so it’s going to be, I guess, an easier game for us.
“But we’re still going to have to play hard and do all the good things right to win our games.”
ICE CHIPS: Delta Wild Academy Green (6-0) doubled the Okanagan Hockey Academy (4-1-1) of Edmonton 6-3 for the tournament title Sunday.
Delta is the fifth academy team in six years to hoist the championship trophy. Delta Hockey Academy Wild was also the 2015 winner.
Mathew Ward of Delta was the tournament’s leading scorer with nine goals and 18 points.
Koehn Zimmer (8-4-12) of OHA Edmonton was named the tournament’s most outstanding forward and MVP and teammate Keaton Dowhaniuk (2-5-7) was recognized as the best defenceman.
Visit www.johnreidmemorial.com for tournament info.
