Airdrie Thunder players have spent the last six weeks looking above them in the divisional standings.
After a 5-1 loss to the Three Hills Thrashers at the Ron Ebbesen Arena on Dec. 10, the Junior B squad can add another name to the list of teams it will be chasing.
The defeat moved the Thrashers ahead of Airdrie by one point in the Heritage Junior Hockey League’s Central Division, with both teams still well behind the first-place Cochrane Generals.
Kristian Petit scored the lone goal for the Thunder, which has now lost five of its last seven games.
“They did pass us, but it’s still fairly early in the year,” said Thunder head coach Darryl Einarson. “We’re concerned about that loss and it was a tough game. We match up fairly well, but give them credit as they played a solid road game.”
Three Hills built a 3-0 second period lead, before Petit finished off a play from Andrew Bergmann and Ryan Russell to bring Airdrie within two with 2:50 left in the middle frame. But the Thrashers scored again two minutes later to open another three-goal lead.
“We made some critical errors, which they pounced on and scored,” Einarson said. “They seemed to get the momentum as the game went along and scored in the last minute of the second, which really hurt as it put us down 4-1. It makes for a tough hill to climb after that.”
Jeff Gardner was in net for Airdrie, while Cody Boeckman earned the win for Three Hills.
“I thought their goaltender had a really good game. He made some big stops early on and didn’t allow us to get any momentum going,” Einarson said. “We’re having trouble finishing off. We didn’t have our A game – some guys played well, other guys certainly didn’t.”
The Thunder will play two more divisional games this weekend, as they host the Mountainview Colts at the Ron Ebbesen Arena at 8 p.m. on Dec. 17, before travelling to Cochrane to face the Generals the following evening.
“If we could put a couple of wins together this weekend and leave for the break with a better feeling that would be great,” Einarson said.
