A flat third period cost the Estevan TS&M bantam AA Bruins a needed win at Affinity Place on Sunday afternoon.
Leading 4-0 heading into the final 20 minutes, the Bruins gave up five unanswered goals to the Sask Valley Vipers (13-8-2) resulting in a 5-4 loss to the boys from Warman-Martensville. The loss made for an unsavoury end to a good weekend for the bantam team, who began the post-Christmas portion of their schedule with a 5-2 home win over the Swift Current Kabos Raiders (3-14-4) on Friday followed by a 3-2 defeat of the Saskatoon Frostbite (6-11-5) at Affinity Place the next evening.
“They outplayed us,” said Bruins coach Tom Copeland, whose team fell to 13-5-4 with the loss. “These teams that come out of the north are really good hockey teams. You give them an inch, they're going to take it. You can't do that. That's on us. They didn't win that game, we gave it to them.”
In a physical first few minutes to start the game, the Bruins' Liam Rutten opened the scoring by deflecting a pass out front from the corner by Mason Strutt past Vipers goaltender Carter Woodside. A checking from behind and head contact penalty to defenceman Cole Brooks with just over five minutes remaining in the first period earned Brooks a game misconduct and brought the Bruins down to five defencemen for the rest of the game.
The Vipers seemed to control the play early in the second period, but it was Estevan's Jake Palmer on a one-timer from the slot who would score first eight minutes in. The Vipers had a glorious chance to get that one back two minutes later on a penalty shot by Holden Knights, who curved into the zone before deking forehand and then shooting backhand from the top of the crease on Bruins netminder Morgan Wanner who fired out the glove to make the save.
Penalty trouble for Sask Valley late in the second came back to haunt them when Palmer scored shortly into a power play from the top of the crease on a pass by Strutt from behind the net. Strutt then scored one himself on a breakaway from just outside the blue line with under two minutes to go on a wicked shot from the slot that found the top corner glove side.
Less than five minutes into the final frame, the Vipers' Kyrell Sopotyk converted a rebound to make the score 4-1 before Nolan Doell brought them within two 53 seconds later on a shot from the hash marks that Wanner got a piece of with his blocker. Nineteen seconds later, Sask Valley found the back of the net once again when Josh Pillar found himself staring at an open side of the net after Wanner went down to stop a shot that bounced off the post and into the crease.
Penalty trouble then proved the downfall for Estevan as Doell first scored the tying goal with 12:44 left on the man advantage with a shot from the bottom of the circle that somehow found an opening between Wanner's pad and the post he was hugging. Eight seconds after killing off another penalty, Sopotyk put the Vipers up for good with a wrist shot through a screen that snuck into the top corner glove side.
“We thought we had some chances to score in the first periods and their goaltender played very well and we just kept on pushing,” said Vipers coach Shaun Priel, whose team downed the Crescent Point Wings 8-0 in Weyburn the previous day after starting off the weekend with a 6-5 home defeat to the Saskatoon Outlaws at Warman Legends Arena on Thursday. “We told the kids 'get one every five minutes and see if we can get ourselves back in the game. Get the tie and anything more than that is a bonus.' Fortunately we got one early and one right after that and the kids got momentum and kept on pushing and we were able to put some pucks away that didn't go in in the first two periods.”
Copeland said they'll take the four out of six available points from the weekend, but when a team goes into the third with a four-goal lead it should have been six out of six points. He said they're chasing down the first place Yorkton Xerox Terriers (19-1-4) and those are wins that can't be given away.
“The four ties we have this year are all give away ties,” said Copeland. “They've all come back on us in those ties. We've got (Dalton) Schrader out, we've got Brooks-y out, so then you've got a lot of young guys still learning to play, but they've got to step up. It's January now. There is no excuse. They should be able to do it.”
