Auditions to play for the St. Albert Steel continue after tryouts started last week.
About 30 players remain at training camp as head coach and general manager Greg Parks finalizes the Steel’s roster for the Sept. 9 season opener in Olds.
“Thirty is definitely a more workable number, especially for practices,” Parks told the Gazette on Monday. “We still have four exhibition games left as we start to tweak things a little bit and get prepared for opening night. We’ll give some guys another shot on Tuesday [against the Camrose Kodiaks] and then probably cut down a little bit more going into the weekend.”
The score against Camrose at Performance Arena was unavailable at press time.
This weekend the Steel will face off against the Sherwood Park Crusaders twice — 7 p.m. Friday in Sherwood Park and 7 p.m. Saturday in St. Albert. Sunday, the Steel play the Alberta Junior Hockey League champion Spruce Grove Saints in Whitecourt at 2 p.m. to end the pre-season schedule.
“We’re probably looking at our veterans to play no more than two games this weekend. I’m not sure if we’re going to play everyone that last game or not, but with two out of the three games, that should get them ready for a good week of practice before Sept. 9,” said Parks, who wants to have at least 25 players available for the trip to Olds.
Last weekend, the Steel skated in four exhibition games in three days and lost every match in the pre-season tournament.
“It would’ve been nice to win a few more games, but that is not what the weekend was about. It’s more about evaluation and we definitely think that we accomplished what we needed to out of the weekend,” Parks said. “There were a lot of individual things that stood out for us, which was good to see. On the flipside of that, you see some guys that aren’t quite ready to be at this level. It’s all part of the process.”
Scores were 9-4 against the Crusaders in St. Albert, 8-2 against the Saints and 2-1 against the Drayton Valley Thunder in Sherwood Park and 4-2 in the B final against the Saints in Spruce Grove.
“We were carrying 48 or so into the weekend and it was real nice to give them all an opportunity just to see how they fare at this level,” Parks said. “There were some good flashes in every area. Some goaltenders had good spurts. Some defencemen stood out and it was the same with the forwards. It’s just tough when you’ve got a lot of different guys in and out and there is not a lot of chemistry there.”
The last two games against the Thunder and Saints were the best of the bunch.
“It was a funny tournament. There were a lot of lopsided scores, even in the last game Drayton Valley won 8-1 [against the Crusaders in the A final Sunday]. That happens when you have a lot of bodies out there,” Parks said. “We really didn’t have a veteran presence in any of our games. It was pretty balanced, around five veterans every game, give or take one.”
ICE CHIPS: Parks is waiting word on how veteran Ryan Berlin and potential Steel players Mackenzie Royer, Braeden Farge and Cole Linaker do at their respective Western Hockey League camps. All four are forwards.
High-scoring defenceman Thomas Ward-Cardinal is expected to rejoin the Steel after trying out with a pro team in Austria. Cardinal, 19, scored nine goals, added 30 assists and had 89 penalty minutes in 46 games with the Steel after the Hobbema product was acquired from the Calgary Mustangs for disgruntled defenceman Ryan Wilkinson. Cardinal also quarterbacked the Steel power play and netted five goals with the man advantage.
