OLDS, AB (November 13, 2015) — The Brooks Bandits (14-4-2) got goals from 8 different goal scorers, as the team reached double digits for the second time this season in a 10-1 road win over the Olds Grizzlys on Friday night.
With the win, combined with a Camrose loss in Spruce Grove, the Bandits moved to 3 points back of the Kodiaks for first place in the Alberta Junior Hockey League (AJHL) South division, with 2 games in hand.
The first of six regular season meetings between the two games got off to a dominant start for the visitors, with Brooks scoring twice in the span of 54 seconds. First, Jeff Malott (Waterdown, ON) potted a rebound goal at the 7:33 mark off of a Nick Prkusic (Medicine Hat, AB) shot, and soon afterwards, Jesse Pereira (Fort Erie, ON) won a faceoff back to Cale Makar (Calgary, AB), who fired a long wrist shot through traffic from the left point to double the lead.
Just under six minutes after Makar’s goal, another defenceman chipped in when Joe O’Connor (Hamden, CT) sped into the Olds zone along the left wing side on a 2-on-1 rush, but carried the puck behind the net and wrapped it around the right post for his fourth goal in his last two games.
In the second, although Olds outshot the Bandits 10-8, Brooks converted for two more goals. The Grizzlys got on the board first when George King converted a 2-on-1 pass from Riley Smith to make it 3-1. But only 18 seconds after King’s goal, Pereira deked his way into the slot from the left wing circle and fired a quick wrister into the top right corner to reclaim the three goal lead. Bandits captain Derek Lodermeier (Brooklyn Center, MN) capped off the second period scoring at 11:52 when he charged into the slot from the right point, and lifted a high shot off the right post and in to make it 5-1.
In the third, the Bandits had scored three more times before the period was 90 seconds old. The first came at the 52 second mark, when Jesse Baird (Brampton, ON) sped in on a partial breakaway and fired a low glove side shot past goaltender Ben Giesbrecht, ending his night as affiliate goalie Justin Travis was brought in.
Travis would last only 29 seconds, however. First, Parker Foo set up Jared Cockrell for a tap-in goal at the 1:18 mark, and on the ensuing faceoff, it took Cockrell only 9 seconds to convert again, as Josh McKechney fed a pass from the high slot to Cockrell at the right circle, whose short side wrister beat Travis to make it 8-1. The scoring frenzy for Cockrell fell just short of the AJHL record for fastest two goals by a single player, which is 5 seconds.
Giesbrecht returned to the game and would be beaten twice more. First, Lodermeier converted a power play rebound at 10:09 to make it 9-1. Second, Will Conley (Strathmore, AB) collected a dropback pass from Hayden Ursulak (Calgary, AB) in the slot and fired a quick wrister into the back of the Olds net for his third of the year and the exclamation point in the 10-1 final score.
The Bandits will return home for a Saturday night rematch with the Grizzlys starting at 7:00 PM. Pre-game coverage begins on the home of the Bandits, Q105.7, at 6:45.