It has been a while since we’ve seen Goaltender Matt Tomkins between the pipes for the Crusaders, September 29th to be exact. But Tuesday night in Lloydminster marked the return of the AJHL’s only drafted player in the league.
Tomkins stopped 28 shots en route to his sixth win of the season, and helping the Crusaders snap a four game losing skid.
“[It] was good to feel the puck a lot. I felt really good. Didn’t feel at all like I was out for six weeks.” Tomkins said after the Crusader’s 4-3 win over the Bobcats.
The Crusaders were able to put the puck past Bobcat Goaltender Chase Martin in Tuesday night’s game, something they could not do in Sunday’s 4-0 loss at home against Lloydminster.
“We felt more confident as a team and we buried the chances we had. We were strong in the defensive zone and never got trapped. [That] allowed us to control the puck in their end a lot too.” Tomkins noted about his teammates in front of him.
Putting up four goals is definitely a confidence booster for a team that had only scored one goal in their last two games prior to Tuesday night. Another confidence booster was capitalizing on the Power Play. Tomkins’ teammates had gone 0 for 10 in the last two contests before Sean MacTavish got the man advantage marker five minutes in to the first period. MacTavish also added some heroics by scoring the game winning goal in the final 65 seconds of the third period.
The Crusaders return to action Saturday night in Spruce Grove as they take on the Spruce Grove Saints for the second meeting of the season, and Sunday afternoon the Cru entertain the Drumheller Dragons at the Sherwood Park Arena. The Cru will look to build off the big win Tuesday night and as well slowly welcome injured players such as Matt Tomkins back to the line up, who is ready to put together a little run as we near the half way point of the 2012-2013 season.
“I’m pumped to go on a roll now.”