BROOKS, AB (October 9, 2015) – The Brooks Bandits (7-3) held the visiting Calgary Mustangs (4-7) to only 7 shots on goal, including just 1 in the third period, en route to a dominant 5-1 home win in front of 1,323 fans at the Centennial Regional Arena on Friday night.
Nick Prkusic (Medicine Hat, AB) scored twice, while Cale Makar (Calgary, AB), Shane Bear (Calgary, AB) and Dylan McCrory (Kirkland, PQ) all had one goal, one assist nights.
“We didn’t dump a ton of pucks tonight, and when we did we were on them quick,” analyzed head coach and general manager Ryan Papaioannou. “I thought everybody was on the same page tonight, we made a lot of plays, and the only thing we didn’t do was finish everything off.”
“On a real good, or a real lucky night, I think we could have scored twelve.”
Brooks opened the scoring at the 4:50 mark when McCrory flipped a pass from between the hashmarks, to Prkusic who had slipped behind the defence to the top of the crease. One quick wrist shot later, and Prkusic had his second goal of the season and the Bandits had the early lead.
At the 11:33 mark, on the Bandits’ second power play, Prkusic received a pass from Joe O’Connor at the top of the right circle, and with no Mustangs covering him, snuck in closer on goaltender Ryan Ternes and fired a far side shot into the back of the net for the eventual game-winner.
Calgary responded at 7:33 of the second when a turnover by the Bandits behind their own net led to a Yuri Chernichko rebound goal to cut the Bandits lead in half.
But only 16 seconds later, Will Conley banked a pass off the neutral zone boards that was chased down by Makar for a breakaway. The defenceman’s quick shot beat Ternes to make it 3-1.
Just over two minutes after that, Parker Foo set up McCrory for a quick wrister from the right wing circle for a 4-1 lead, and Shane Bear capped off the scoring at 17:56 of the middle frame when he intercepted a Mustang pass at the right circle and lifted a backhand shot into the back of the Mustang net to finish up a period where the Bandits outshot Calgary 18-4.
There was no scoring in the third period, as the Bandits outshot the Mustangs 9-1 in the final frame and 37-7 overall. Brooks went 1 for 8 on the power play and a perfect 7 for 7 on the penalty kill, extending the team’s streak without allowing a power play goal to 4 games.
Josh Davies (Guelph, ON) recorded his seventh win making 6 saves on just 7 shots.
The Bandits take the rest of the weekend off before hitting the road next Friday to take on the Drayton Valley Thunder, followed by the Spruce Grove Saints the following night.
“That’s a team that can come in and beat you any night,” said Papaioannou of the Thunder. “We need to be able to go up and win that game to set ourselves up for a big game in Spruce Grove. If we don’t win the Friday night, even if you win Saturday, to me it’s way less important of a game. We need to look forward to playing Spruce, but we need to focus first on Drayton Valley.”
Puck drop from the Drayton Valley Omniplex is at 7:30 with pre-game coverage starting at 7:15 on Q105.7.
Player of the Game: #15 Nick Prkusic
Hardest Working Bandit: #22 Parker Foo