Cole Fonstad scored his first Saskatchewan Junior A Hockey League goal in the CanElson Drilling Estevan Bruins 6-3 win over the Melville Millionaires at Affinity Place last Wednesday.
Fonstad, 15, who was called up to play as an affiliated player for his hometown Bruins against the Millionaires, was following up the play of his linemates Keegan Allison and Darcy DeRoose when a puck popped loose on the boards just over five minutes into the first period. The five-foot-nine and 150-pound centre with the Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League’s Moose Jaw Warriors picked up the puck to go in one-on-one with a Melville defender before firing a shot into the top corner from the hash marks using the defenceman as a screen.
“I wasn’t really expecting to have a really big impact on the game,” said Fonstad, who was selected fifth overall by the Prince Albert Raiders in the 2015 WHL Bantam Draft. “But it’s good to get that out of the way quick.”
“He’s a real good player,” said Chris Lewgood, head coach and general manager of the 16-15-0-1 Bruins. “I’m not sure how many times we’ll get to work with him this year, but he’s an elite player. He’s got an elite hockey mind and skill set to match. As he fills out and gets older he’s going to be one heck of a hockey player.”
Fonstad said the overall strength of the players with Melville is the biggest difference from what he usually sees playing with Moose Jaw. He said that was evident on his faceoffs where the opposition centre seemed to just push him off and win it clean.
“I think I just need to get bigger and stronger and I can play at this level easily,” he said.
After Fonstad opened up the scoring, Bruins defenceman Zach Douglas and forward Owen LaClare, on the power play, helped put the home side up 3-0 by the end of the first 20 minutes. Estevan’s Zach Goberis added a marker in the second frame, while LaClare, with his second, and DeRoose notched third period goals. Melville’s Tyler Kreklewich, Cole Filler and Dalton Menke were the only Millionaires able to beat Estevan starting goaltender Nathan Alalouf.
Melville “came out of the gate slow this year and improved quite a bit since then, so the one thing is don’t take them lightly,” said Lewgood about the 9-22-0-1 Millionaires. “They proved that last time when we played them (a 7-2 road loss Oct. 27). The next thing is to just focus on our game plan and not worry so much about the opponent and do the things that we’ve been working on. I thought our guys did pretty well with that.”
