While the Dragons have only managed one win as of Monday, they have been in the hunt and have showed resolve. It is just a matter of limiting mistakes and protecting the puck.
The Dragons won their season opener against Lloydminster on the road, and fought back against the Calgary Mustangs to force overtime, before they were taken 5-4. Their home opener against Spruce Grove saw the team get better as the game went on, but again they fell in overtime. Last Sunday the Brooks Bandits had their number winning 7-1.
“It has mostly been a product of turnovers. Even in the Spruce Grove game, they outshot us, but it wasn’t a situation where we never had the puck. We held the puck, and for whatever reason it ended up on a Spruce Grove stick,” said Coach Dan Price. “Once we sorted that out, it was a very evenly played balanced game.”
Against Spruce Grove, the Dragons scored first, but found themselves down 2-1 in the second period. They were able to tie the game and hold the Saints through the third. They had a great chance to win in overtime, but were not able to put it in the net.
This was similar to the day before in Calgary versus the Mustangs. This time the Dragons were down 4-1, but we able to score one in the second and two in the third period to force overtime.
“Those are all good signs, that the guys continue to compete, go through the process and learn,” said Price.
Against Brooks last Sunday, Price said special teams were a factor. The Dragons started strong and were outshooting the Bandits early, however they had trouble getting in sync on the powerplay.
“They put us on our heels, and on those powerplays we didn’t move the puck as well as we normally do, both on breakout and entry, and also in zones. The result was the puck getting sent back into our end, and that was frustrating and tiring,” said Price. “All of a sudden Brooks came back and scored themselves, and were feeling really good. We had a really good chance to take control of that game, and we had a really good chance to do that on the powerplay and unfortunately it didn’t click.”
One standout is goalie James D’Andrea who has faced 159 shots in the first four games.
“The scores have not been reflective of James’ play, he’s played great,” said Price. “He has been getting a lot of work in the first few games so we needed to minimize the shots again. I am very certain had we done a better job managing the puck, our shot totals would have been cut in half.”
The Dragons were in Calgary to take on the Canucks on Tuesday (results not available at press time). The team will not be back in the Drumheller Memorial Arena until Friday, September 30 to play the Fort McMurray Oil Barons.
