Tristan Zandee broke the hearts of the St. Albert Gregg Distributors Sabres.
The season-ending dagger was Wednesday’s golden goal for the Airdrie Xtreme in the seventh period in the fifth and deciding game of the Alberta Major Bantam Hockey League provincial final.
The 60th shot against netminder Carson Ironside ended the suspense with 3:54 remaining in the fourth overtime.
“I got the puck in like the mid slot area and shot it and it hit his glove and after that it was just really a blur. I can’t really remember it,” said an elated Zandee during the Xtreme’s trophy celebration at Go Auto Arena. “It’s pretty special to do it for all the guys.”
It was closing in on 11:30 p.m. when the Alberta rep for westerns was declared in the 66th minute of sudden-death hockey.
“I don’t know if you’re happy or relieved. I think it’s a little bit of both because when it goes that long you don’t want to lose because it’s just a crushing defeat to play seven periods of hockey and my heart goes out to them, especially their goaltender. It’s a tough way to lose a hockey game in period number seven and unfortunately somebody has to,” said Xtreme head coach Dave Millard.
The fourth OT result summed up the too close to call playoff as neither team won on home ice.
“There wasn’t much difference between these two teams. It’s really too bad that there had to be a loser in this series. It was so hard-fought. Each game was by a goal. Two even teams and two great goaltenders,” Millard said. “This feels like it could’ve been the Western Canadian Championships right here tonight to be perfectly honest.
“They didn’t give up an inch. We didn’t give up an inch. You knew it was going to take a bounce either way to finally get a goal and it looked like it was going to go all night to be honest.”
The Sabres lost twice at Akinsdale Arena by scores of 3-2 as game one was decided at 2:28 of the first OT period and game two wrapped up in the 33rd minute of sudden death in the third extra period.
On the brink of elimination in Airdrie, the Sabres willed their way to victories of 7-6 as captain Tyson Greenway slotted the winner at 1:12 of the first OT period and 4-3 as Evan Arnold’s second goal of the third period with 19 seconds remaining capped off a three-goal comeback with under eight minutes to go that included Zachry Desranleau’s tying marker with 1:35 to play.
"To be honest we were pretty down after we lost game four because we thought we played pretty well. We had a bad seven minutes, they capitalized and got the win,” Millard said.
Zandee added: “We refocused and made sure we could somehow grind this one out because we really wanted to go to westerns and we got it done,” said the left winger/centre.
After the clock struck midnight, head coach Lee Zalasky emerged from a sombre dressing room and was asked to sum up his post-game message to the devastated Sabres.
“We come this far and win or lose they’re winners,” Zalasky said in a hushed tone. “For the score to be what it is, you’re one shot away, right? It’s a bounce one way or a bounce the other way and it is what it is.
“They left it all out there. Their team was just as tired as we were, it was just a matter of time before someone scored.”
The Sabres slowly trickled out of the dressing room wearing their hearts on their sleeves.
“The boys are all sad, (peeved) off. They wanted to do more but the end wasn’t what we wanted so it’s disappointing,” Greenway said. “Our team battled until the end. Obviously it didn’t turn out the way we wanted but we battled the whole way.”
The taxing affair left the players drained “mentally and physically,” Greenway said. “Our legs are dying right now. Everybody can’t feel their feet.”
The game plan in OT was “simple hockey,” said Zalasky, noting fatigue and hydration were major concerns. “Get pucks at the net with some bodies there and driving pucks deep and if it’s going to be a chance against you, you want to make them work 200 feet from their goal line to break it out. You don’t want to give them an easy play up the middle or a turnover.
“You’re really trying to manage their, I guess, mental state a bit and not overwhelm them.”
The Sabres were outshot 29-26 in OT after the shot count favoured the Xtreme 14-4 in third as Tegan Skehar knotted the score on the power play with 7:21 left in regulation time.
“Tegan got his head up and just fired it through a maze of people. I couldn’t even see the goaltender so I know he didn’t see it,” Millard said. “It was huge. It gave a huge lift to our bench.
“We were feeling good about ourselves. We thought we were playing well. We hit three posts or four posts and couple of the shafts of sticks but we knew if we kept going eventually we would get rewarded.
“You’re playing the other team and the clock becomes your enemy as well. You get that late goal and it gave us a boost and carried us through for quite a while.”
An abundance of five alarm end-to-end chances against Ironside and the Xtreme’s Nathan Airey, who finished with 49 saves, dominate the OT segment.
Both teams were also penalized four times, including three minors for the Xtreme and a pair for the Sabres in the second extra period.
“The boys were (peeved) off and mad that the game was so long. Everybody wanted to score and just get the game over,” said Greenway, 15.
Zandee’s sixth goal and 11th point in 12 playoff games sealed the deal in a game that never seemed to end after the 6:50 p.m. opening face-off.
“We were getting tired but you’ve just got to push through and somehow make it happen kind of thing and that’s what we were saying going into the fourth one and we just made it happened somehow,” said Zandee, 14, a Grade 9 Crowther Memorial School student in Strathmore. “It was our team effort. No one was slacking off. I think it was just our overall team aura that really pushed us over the top.”
A dejected Ironside (7-4, 2.36 GAA) was consoled by teammates after the puck dribbled over the goal line and the Xtreme bench poured onto the ice to mob Zandee.
“He’s awesome. I love that kid. He stood on his head the whole game, the whole series. He’s been our best player all year,” said Greenway, a Grade 10 St. Albert Catholic High School student.
Airey (7-2, 2.39 GAA) matched save for save with Ironside but had no chance on Jaxon Dube’s ninth goal and 18th point in 13 playoff games at 12:22 of the middle frame. Dube slipped behind the defence and went upstairs with a nifty move on the team’s 17th shot of the night.
Dube’s linemates, Greenway at centre and Desranleau, a raging bull and arguably the second-best Sabre in game five behind Ironside, assisted on the play.
Shots were 31-24 for the Xtreme after three periods as the penalty-kill units came up big for both teams.
“Everybody wanted to keep the puck out of their own net and play a defensive game first,” Greenway said.
A sizable pro-Sabres’ crowd stayed until the very end to hopefully witness the first St. Albert bantam AAA provincial championship since 1999.
“It was awesome. The atmosphere was awesome. The parents were loud. You could hear them in the stands cheering us on. It was just an awesome game to play,” Greenway said.
