The Sherwood Park Crusaders made their first trip to the Scott Safety Centre last night to take on the Whitecourt Wolverines.
Matt Berlin made his 11th start this season for the Crusaders and at the other end stood Wolverines number one Tye Morin.
It was a quiet period for offence with no goals being scored. On the shot clock, Sherwood Park dominated Whitecourt outshooting them 13 to 4. That was largely in part to the four powerplays that the Crusaders found themselves on. Midway through the second, Wolverines rookie forward Kurtis Labant was given a 10-minute game misconduct for a blow to the head.
The doors were blown right off in the second thanks to four goals from the travelling Crusaders. Rookie forward Tanner Fincaryk opened up the scoring seven minutes into the frame for his fourth goal of the season. The goals keep coming from that point with the Crusaders scoring three more goals in just over a minute. The recently committed Garrett Clegg got the first of those three with a quick wrist shot that got by Morin for his tenth of the season. Brayden Hyland’s goal soon followed that after he put home the rebound from a Clegg shot. Then just 20 seconds later, William Zapernick tipped in a shot from the point from Michael Bentz to make it 4-0 Crusaders.
The Wolverines did manage to find some offence with three minutes left. Easton Haygarth got his team on the board with the assists coming from Matthew Monk and Spencer Augot.
It was a feisty third period after Kyle Fulton was check from behind by Mackenzie Harden, but first, Jacob Franczak got on the board. As another Crusaders powerplay expired, Garrett Clegg held onto the puck until he found a wide open Franczak backdoor to make it 5-1. Five minutes later, the check from behind happened which resulted in a scrum behind the net with four players receiving misconducts and Brett Wieschorster and Jaedon Leslie each getting roughing penalties.
That would be it for the contest in Whitecourt with the Crusaders picked up two points against the Wolverines for the first time since 2016/17 season.
Next up for the Crusaders is a road trip north to face the Fort McMurray Oil Barons on Tuesday and Wednesday.