Call it an omen.
When Airdrie Thunder forward Andrew Bergmann hit the post square on at the 5:27 mark of Jan. 7’s game against the Cochrane Generals, both teams inherently knew something out of the ordinary was about to take place.
Minutes later, Generals sniper Jonny Pictin scored his first of three goals on a wild shot from 40 feet out, surprising Airdrie netminder Jeff Gardner and propelling Cochrane to a 9-2 blowout over the Thunder at the Ron Ebbesen Arena.
Mike Matlo also scored twice, while Danny McSween, Tyson Soloski, Jordan Davidson and Darren Schmautz all had singles. Netminder Kenny Quinn made 34 saves to earn his 11th win of the season and help extend Cochrane’s division lead over Airdrie to 11 points.
“We were all over them in the first five minutes and hit that post dead on,” said Thunder head coach Darryl Einarson. “Then they started taking it to us – they came to play. We had to be more physical to slow down their speed game and we didn’t play that way. Their hustle in our end really put pressure on our D-zone coverage and it cost us tonight, big time. We’ve got to learn from that.”
“The most important aspect of the win was to even up the season series,” said Generals’ head coach Dana Boothby. “We’re ahead of them, but if you give them that psychological advantage of 3-1 in the season series – we didn’t want to go there, so it was a big win for us. We’re done with them until (potentially) the playoffs and I think it’s a huge statement going into their barn. I’m really happy we got the two points tonight.”
After Pictin’s odd goal, Cochrane added to its lead when Davidson scored on the power play at the 16:05 mark. Two minutes later, Pictin made it 3-0 when he jumped on a rebound from McSween’s initial shot.
Bergmann gave Airdrie life 5:05 into the second when he took a pass from Ryan Russell and made a move on Quinn. But Schmautz delivered the knockout blow with only two seconds remaining in the middle frame, when he put Cochrane up 4-1 after finishing off a two-on-one with Pictin.
“I thought we came on in the second period, our penalty kill was great, and we were right there at 3-1,” Einarson said. “We had lots of chances to score. But to let that late goal in, for them to score again, was the intensity level we had tonight. We’ve got to be better. It’s all about finish and they certainly finished off tonight.”
“It always hurts to get a late goal against you,” Boothby said. “In all of the other Airdrie-Cochrane games this season the lead has changed hands, so that’s what we tried to learn from tonight. We tried to stay focused when we had the lead – look at Canada-Russia. You have to play 60 minutes. That’s a good hockey team and they’re going to be there right there at the end.”
The Generals chased Gardner from the net three minutes into the third after two quick goals, before a series of penalties and fights took over the period. After Cochrane scored its ninth goal, Einarson decided he needed to use his timeout to remind his players that these two teams may meet again during the playoffs.
“The nature of the timeout was to finish off strong,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of pride. Sometimes we’ve got to be reminded of that. There’s no quit and you cannot quit – it doesn’t matter what the score is.”
