The St. Albert Gregg Distributors Sabres showcased their mettle as provincial finalists in the Alberta Major Bantam Hockey League.
The Sabres finished 9-4 (60 GF/36 GA) in the playoffs after going 25-3-8 (186 GF/58 GA) as the second-best team in the regular season.
“They showed resilience through the year. They played hard,” said Lee Zalasky, head coach of the north conference playoff winners. “I hope they had learned something through the season. There is a lot of adversity they faced and there are some life lessons and hockey lessons they can carry over into next year.”
The Sabres performed like champions in the best-of-five provincial series against the Airdrie Xtreme as the season ended one goal short of the team’s first provincial title since 1999 in Wednesday’s 2-1 agonizing loss in the fourth overtime period of the fifth and deciding game.
With the season on the line, the Sabres pulled off two clutch victories last weekend in Airdrie, 7-6 in OT and 4-3 come-from-behind decision, after the Xtreme opened the series with a pair of 3-2 OT wins the previous weekend at Akinsdale Arena.
The Xtreme – 10-3 (53 GF/32 GA) in the post season and 25-5-6 (148 GF/72 GA) in the regular season – and the Sabres logged 102 minutes of sudden-death hockey spanning nine extra periods in four games.
Overall in the playoffs, the Xtreme are 4-2 and the Sabres are 1-4 in OT results.
“When you’re down 2-0 like we were it could’ve been easy for some guys to roll over. They have Alberta Cup tryouts starting on Friday and for a young player that’s a big experience and something they look forward to so to have that in the back of their mind and being down 2-0 it could’ve been easy for them, I guess you could say, to mail it in and save some of that for this weekend but playing until the wee hours tonight when they’ve got tryouts in two days was a good test for their character. They can hold their heads held high,” Zalasky said.
Tyson Greenway is the only returning player from last year’s AMBHL regular-season leaders at 31-1-4 but in the playoffs the Sabres lost the best-of-five north final in five games to the Fort Saskatchewan Rangers (27-7-2), the provincial champions and bronze medallists at westerns.
“It’s fun to be the underdog I guess. There are no high expectations but if you do well you get noticed,” said the Sabres’ captain and centreman.
The Sabres also had three other players eligible to return this season but forward Matt Savoie, who is being touted as the No. 1 pick in the 2019 Western Hockey League bantam draft, as well as forward Zack Ostapchuk and defenceman Marc Lajoie, a pair of potential high picks in this year’s WHL draft, opted to join the Northern Alberta Xtreme, a bantam prep academy team in the Canadian Sport School Hockey League.
When asked if the Sabres exceeded expectations this season, Zalasky replied: “I think the expectations are always high and It was a good run. Anytime you get this far you keep the bar whereever it is to keep moving on.
“Ultimately it was a lot of fun. I don’t know if we exceeded expectations or not, it was just a good year. They played hard and did a lot of good things.”
ICE CHIPS: Ethan Sundar of the Sabres finished third in the AMBHL playoff scoring race with 19 points and shared the team lead in goals with Evan Arnold at 10 apiece.
Sundar was also the AMBHL’s second-highest scorer in league play with 64 points in 36 games and tied for third in goals with 28.
