Strong showing by Sabres

The 2017 John Reid Memorial Tournament will be remembered as the year the host team lost to the championship winner in the playoffs.

The St. Albert Gregg Distributors Sabres suffered an 8-3 setback to the Toronto Marlboros (4-1-1) in Saturday’s quarter-finals after finishing first in the Kal-Tire division of the John Reid pool with three wins and no losses.

The Sabres would go on to drop a 7-2 decision to the Delta Hockey Academy Wild (4-1) in Sunday’s tournament windup.

The 3-2 tournament showing marked the first winning record for a St. Albert bantam AAA team since the 3-1-1 Sabres in 2010.

“We had a good tournament,” said centre Ryley Morgan. “We had a good round robin and even though it definitely wasn’t the finish we wanted, we came together as a team as we build towards the (league) playoffs.”

The top team in the Alberta Major Bantam Hockey League at 26-1-2 posted victories of 8-4 against the Okanagan Hockey Academy (3-2) of Edmonton, 2-1 against the Colorado T-Birds (0-5) and the wild 10-8 affair against the Yale Hockey Academy (4-2) of Abbotsford, last year’s champion who lost Sunday’s final to Toronto 5-4 in a shootout.

“We came out strong because we knew St. Albert teams didn’t do well in the past so we wanted to put that to an end,” said captain Mike Benning. “None of us remembered when the last St. Albert team went 3-0 in round robin so that was a good achievement.”

A slow start against Toronto rattled the Sabres as the Marlboros struck three times in the first period and led 5-0 before Benning scored unassisted with 6:29 left in the middle frame.

“It took us a long time to start playing well. They’re a good physical team and they took it to us in the first period and it ended up hurting us,” Morgan said.

Austin Spiridakis capitalized twice on the power play for the Sabres.

Toronto potted three goals in the third, including its third with the man advantage.

Shots were 36-23 for Toronto as Ethan Barwick (18 saves on 23 shots) and Kyle Nelson (10 saves on 13 shots) shared netminding duties.

“We just let off the gas and didn’t contribute as well as we should’ve,” Benning said. “They didn’t have as well of a round robin (1-1-1) as I guess they could’ve but they’re a good team, goalies all the way to forwards. We also have good D, forwards and goalies but I guess it kind of comes down to little mistakes and that’s what happened.”

The Sabres rode a huge momentum wave into the playoffs after out-gunning Yale 7-3 the last period on the strength of five in a row during a 13:18 minute span to lead 8-6 with 4:42 remaining in the showdown for first place in the division

Yale tied it at eight with goals on the power play at 15:54 and at even strength at 16:45.

The Sabres regained the lead on Ethan Leyer’s second goal and fifth point of the game at 16:53, with Carter Savoie assisting on the play.

Zack Ostapchuk closed out the scorefest into an empty net with one tick on the clock.

“That was a crazy game. There were lots of penalties and lots of goals being scored but we ended up pulling through with the win,” Morgan said. “Our goalies played good. We forechecked well, backchecked well, worked hard and put the puck into the net.”

It was 2-1 Sabres after the first on goals by Marc Lajoie and Robert Kincaid (power play) and in the second the first of two goals by Morgan left the Sabres trailing 5-3.

Down 6-3 in the third, Spiridakis cued the comeback with consecutive goals, the second was potted on the power play, followed by Benning, Leyer (power play) and Morgan (shorthanded).

Shots were 47-37 for Yale and Nelson (four goals on 34 shots) and Barwick (four goals on 13 shots) took turns in net.

“It started going for us in the third,” Benning said. “We lost to them in Calgary (5-4 at the Rocky Mountain Classic in November) when we had a 4-0 lead so we wanted to go beat them and we scored seven.

“We all contributed because we all knew what was at hand and we all got the job done.”

The low point of the tournament was Sunday’s sketchy effort against Delta as the Sabres struggled to shake off the loss to Toronto.

“It was frustrating,” said Benning, the team’s top-scoring defenceman in the tournament with seven points.

Delta led 4-1 after the first and the team’s second shorthanded goal made it 5-1 at 6:10 of the third.

Down by five, the Sabres capitalized on the power play at 8:05 with Ethan Edwards’ goal.

“They’re a good team but definitely didn’t play our best,” Morgan said. “It was the end of the tournament and we were getting tired but we tried to do everything we could.”

Morgan, 14, ended the opening period with his fifth goal of the tournament, a power-play tally with nine seconds to go after Delta built up a 4-0 advantage.

The team’s leading scorer in the tournament with 11 points also sniped the winner against Colorado to snap a 1-1 deadlock during a man advantage with a shot from the face-off circle that went top shelf from a set-up by Tyson Kowaluk with 5:14 to play.

Morgan was recognized for his outstanding tournament performance as a John Reid pool all-star selection.

“That was awesome but I couldn’t have done it without my teammates and my linemates helping me out throughout the tournament,” said the second-year Sabre who skates on a potent scoring line with Spiridakis and Ethan Whillans.

Morgan was also recipient of the John Reid Memorial Award for heart and hustle and it’s presented annually to the Sabre who symbolizes the person and hockey player Reid was.

Previous winners were Edwards (last year), Noah Fayad, Ryan Cooper, Jake Warawa, Joshua Perrott, Tyler Mrkonjic, Jake Mykitiuk, Jed Groenenboom, Josh Winquist, Ryan Harrison, Steve Wall, Blaine Bokenfohr and Nate Fleming.

“It meant a lot. It was a great honour to be chosen for that award,” said the Grade 9 Richard S. Fowler student who showed off some fancy footwork on his way to the podium at Saturday’s awards banquet. “When I heard my name everybody started clapping so I got up to go get it and I didn’t trip which was good.”

The Sabres will now regroup and refocus their energies on winning the league championship for a trip to westerns. The Nitro north division leaders have seven games remaining before the playoffs, starting Thursday against the Charger north division first-place Fort Saskatchewan Rangers (21-5-1) at 6:30 p.m. at JRC Arena.

“They’re our best competition in the north so that’s going to be a big game. We’ve got to win it because that will elevate us to be better as well,” said Benning, 15, a second-year Sabre. “We’re getting better every day and that’s what we try and do. Right now we’re just tweaking up on some stuff as we start pushing for playoffs.”