Good things came in threes for the Airdrie Xtreme last week.
The Bantam AAA hockey club won all three of its games over a four-day span, posting a 7-5 win over Okotoks, Jan. 27; a 6-0 defeat of Grande Prairie, Jan. 29; and a 9-2 pounding of the Calgary Bronks on Jan. 30.
“Going into the playoffs, you try to get a team gelling and doing all the good things right and we’ve certainly been able to accomplish that the last few games,” said Xtreme head coach Terry Keogh. “We’re seeing a lot better puck movement, better team play and some players who don’t typically get opportunities are starting to convert.”
Mackenzie Bauer and Tyler Wong each had three goals and three assists during the blowout over the Bronks, while netminder Christian Fitzgerald made 29 saves for his ninth win of the season. Ryan Zeniuk, Connor Boyd and Kyle Pauls also scored for Airdrie.
Calgary opened the scoring 4:53 into the first, before Wong responded, with seven minutes left, when he put a wraparound attempt past Bronks’ netminder TJ Cairns.
The Xtreme then blew the game wide open as the team scored six times during the second period. Wong scored his second of the game 53 seconds in, as he walked into the offensive zone and fired a wrist shot from the top of the circle. Boyd made it 3-1 moments later and Bauer extended the lead to three on a shorthanded breakaway at the 6:29 mark. Wong, Bauer and Zeniuk made it 7-1 after two periods.
“The big difference between the first and the second was that we buried our chances in the second,” Keogh said. “Too many games this year we’ve let teams stick around when we outplay them in the first, so we’ve been working hard at practice on correcting that and thankfully we’ve been finishing some of those chances recently.”
Keogh was slightly concerned with the effort late in the second period, after the large lead had been established, because Airdrie failed to convert on four straight power plays, until there was only 16 seconds left in the last of them.
“We got a little bit comfortable with the lead and our guys stopped moving around,” he said. “There was too much puck movement and not enough body movement. But we settled them down and were able to start converting again. One of the things we’ve been getting in the bad habit of over the year, and have been trying to change in the last few games and had some success, is playing down to the other teams’ level.”
Wong and Bauer both completed their hat tricks late in the third period.
“We started to let up a little bit again in the third,” Keogh said. “We moved away from our basics and their guys started to show their skill a little bit. But it’s part of the development and learning that we have to stay to our team game.”
Airdrie will play two road games this weekend as they’ll travel to Red Deer to play the Black Rebels on Feb. 5, before heading to Medicine Hat to face the Hockey Hounds on Feb. 6.
“We’ll have good practices this week and keep the guys focused,” Keogh said. “The last two wins have been sort of lopsided, so we just need to keep them going with the attitude that regardless of what we’ve accomplished, we still have a lot more we want to accomplish and build on this year.”
