After earning a weekend split with division rivals last week, the Airdrie Thunder is in a three-way tie for third place in the Heritage Junior Hockey League’s North Division.
A 4-1 win over the Blackfalds Wranglers, at the Ron Ebbesen Arena on Jan. 20, and a 5-2 loss to the Thrashers at Three Hills on Jan. 21, has Airdrie tied with the Wranglers and the Mountainview Colts with 39 points.
Head coach Mike Carlsen said the win over the Wranglers was one of the Thunder’s better games in the past two weeks and that the team would have to continue playing in that fashion to make a run at the postseason.
“We had the game plan of speed, tempo and playing 60 minutes and I thought we stuck to it tonight,” he said.
Captain Travis Wallan had two goals, while Alex Hustad scored the eventual game-winner and Brandon Esposito had a single. Netminder Cody Boeckman made 25 saves for his ninth win of the season.
“He played well back there,” Carlsen said. “He’s responded when he’s been asked to. Him and (Logan) Marlow have both been good. We’ve got ourselves almost in a one-game rotation for the most part. They’re doing a good job and neither one of them is causing us problems, so we’ll keep going with that for now.”
Airdrie scored twice on the power play in the first period against Blackfalds. Wallan put a wrist shot past Wranglers’ netminder Layne Swier 1:38 into the game, and Hustad extended the lead, with 2:42 left in the opening frame, from a point shot.
“We got a good jump there in the first period,” Carlsen said. “We worked on a few things with the power play and some stuff in our D-zone as well. We focused on both of those elements and it got us moving forward in the right direction.”
Esposito made it 3-0 less than four minutes into the second, before Wallan added his second on a close-up slap shot, midway through the period, when he was left wide open in front of the net.
Blackfalds’ lone goal came from Stephen Pietsch with 10:37 left in the middle frame.
The next night in Three Hills, Kristian Petit and Daniel Hounjet provided Airdrie’s offence, while netminder Logan Marlow made 24 saves in the loss.
Carlsen said the recent eight-game unbeaten streak was great for the Thunder to get back in the playoff mix, but it was probably good timing for a loss along the way to avoid distraction of a long win streak.
“It’s little bit of both. Obviously you want the points, you’re not going to say no to points when it comes to it, but at the same time, those teams last week – we weren’t up to their level,” he said of the losses to Red Deer and Cochrane two weeks ago.
“There’s a few small things we’re going to work on the game plan and we’ll move forward from there to get back to the way we play.”
Airdrie will host the Ponoka Stampeders at the Ron Ebbesen Arena on Jan. 27. Game time is 8 p.m. The team will then play two road games – at the Red Deer Vipers on Jan. 28, followed by at Blackfalds on Jan. 31.
