The Sherwood Park Crusaders made it three wins in a row this afternoon defeating the Camrose Kodiaks 5-2 at the Encana Arena.
The game did not start out well for the travelling Crusaders. Defenceman Blair Bush was caught on the knee by Kodiaks forward Carson Welke. That resulted in Jayden Platz dropping the gloves with Welke with both players getting handed five minutes for fighting and a 10-minute game misconduct. Platz was also given two minutes for instigating, and Welke received a five minute major for knee giving the Crusades a three-minute powerplay. Bush would not return to the game, and with Platz dropping the gloves, Sherwood Park was left with four defencemen for the majority of the game.
On the resulting powerplay, the Crusaders would score with the goal coming from Garrett Clegg. Kodiaks netminder, Luke Lush attempted the clear the puck but failed the clear the zone. A shot from Michael Benning deflected off a Kodiak to Clegg by the faceoff dot who then opened the scoring. Another goal would be added by the end of the period from Carter Savoie giving the Crusaders a 2-0 lead at the first intermission.
Sherwood Park continued to build off the momentum they gained from a strong first with two early goals in the second. The first came from Arjun Atwal who sniped the puck over the high glove of Lush for his seventh of the season. That goal was the end of Lush’s day after Roddy Ross replaced him. The Crusaders welcomed Ross to the game with a goal on their first shot against him. The goal came from a hard-working fourth line with Zafir Rawji getting his second goal of the season. Camrose would pull it back to within two with two quick goals at the back end of the period from Kyler Kupka and Colson Gengenbach to make it 4-2.
There was only one goal scored in the final frame. Brett Wieschorster put the nail in the coffin for his third goal of the season with a little less than five minutes to play. Tempers boiled over, again, in the final seconds with both teams having two players each receive a five-minute major for fighting and ten-minute game misconducts.
With the victory, the Crusaders now improve to 6-2-2 on the season and are tied for second in the North Division with the Bonnyville Pontiacs. Arjun Atwal also moves into second in league scoring with 15 points in 10 games.