The Dragons finished up on Sunday, a busy week of hockey after playing four games since last Wednesday and were looking forward to the five day lull in icetime after being buried by Okotoks at the end of the weekend.
Scoring 10 goals before the Dragons could respond with their first and only in the third period, the Oilers played a skillful game against the burned out Dragons after a their long week.
“That definitely all snowballed,” said head coach Dan Price, mentioning the intense game against the Calgary Canucks the night prior. “We’re not making excuses, obviously you can’t lose hockey games consistently and by that margin, but there was a chain of events that caused the score to get to where it was.”
Price adds that Okotoks is a very strong team, “It’s not all about what we didn’t do – they played a good game.”
This loss followed a fierce game with the Canucks at home on Saturday evening, where the Dragons lost by a extremely close 3-2.
After a slow first period seeing the Canucks notch one late in the period, Robert Geddes answered back with a powerplay goal halfway into the second shift to light the fire in the Dragon’s bellies.
Calgary made it 3-1 seven minutes into the third period, with Geddes, the team’s top scorer, making his second goal of the game to give them a chance.
After many close calls on fierce drives into the Canuck zone, they failed to find the equalizing point.
“That’s an important lesson for the team, you want to put them away early and keep them away. Not wait to roll the dice at the end,” said Price.
“We put ourselves in the position where we were vulnerable.”
The Dragons won their first game this month on Thursday, November 11 night, squeaking in an overtime win, 4-3, over the Drayton Valley Thunder.
Mike Marianchuk scored the winning goal in OT from a pass from Brendan Algeo only 12 seconds into the period.
Holding a 3-0 lead over Drayton Valley heading into the third period, the Thunder managed to tie it up within 11 minutes of the third shift.
“We lost our focus in the third with guys trying to cover other’s positions, but we’re really proud that they were able to get their heads together and respond in overtime to win.”
The team currently sits fifth in the league with 22 points after 28 games played, losing three of their last ten games.
