Oil Kings change American history
Goaltenders Jarry, Edmonton native Comrie, outstanding
The once-a-season showdown between the Edmonton Oil Kings and Tri-City Americans on Friday night at Rexall Place went down differently than the last few times the teams met.
The Oil Kings hadn’t defeated the Americans since 2009, and last season suffered their worst loss to TriCity (8-1).
But a fter a tentative opening period Friday, the Oil Kings scored three goals in the second stanza and maintained the lead to defeat the Americans 3-1 in a Western Hockey League game at Rexall Place.
Their poor record against the Americans was certainly in the back of the minds of both the Oil Kings players and staff.
“We talked about it before the game,” said head coach Derek Laxdal. “In the four years I’ve been here, we hadn’t beaten them. I think we lost the last home game two years ago in overtime, and we haven’t had the best luck down in their building.”
The Oil Kings were obviously eager to snap that losing streak, but there was another streak they also wanted to break.
Going into Friday’s game, the Americans had yet to lose in regulation against a team from the Eastern Conference.
“Let’s be the team to get the first loss against them,” said Laxdal.
The goaltenders at both ends of the ice wound up stealing the show Friday. Edmonton native Eric Comrie was outstanding for the Americans, making 35 saves, including an impressive sliding glove save on a dangerous 2-on-0 play.
Oil Kings netm i nder Tristan Jarry was also in top form, making 28 saves.
The first period saw both goalies in the zone, not allowing a single goal.
It wasn’t until the second period that both teams began playing more aggressive, particularly the Oil Kings.
After Curtis Lazar buried a rebound off a shot from Brett Pollock to opening the scoring, the Oil Kings seemed to be re-energized.
Less than one minute later, Lane Bauer deflected a Griffin Reinhart shot to quickly put the Oil Kings up by two.
In the final moments of the second period, the Oil Kings kept the shots coming at Comrie, squeezing in one more goal as defenceman Aaron Irving had no problem burying a pass from Reid Petryk at the top of the slot for his ninth of the season.
It was a drastically different period for the Oil Kings.
“We talked about little adjustments in the intermission,” said Lazar. “Just getting traffic and going high on Comrie. He’s a heck of a goaltender, and we got a couple of favourable bounces.”
Although the Oil Kings scored three goals, it was no easy feat slipping the puck past Comrie — or Jarry, for that matter.
Brian Williams of the Americans only figured out how to beat the Oil Kings goaltender with a power-play goal in the dying seconds of the game. It shutdown Jarry’s bid to earn his seventh shutout of the season with just 27 seconds to go.
“(I saw) a lot of saves,” said Lazar when asked about the goaltender showdown.
“They are two of the top goalies in the league. (Jarry) is a competitor, Comrie is a competitor. They are both athletic and both deserve to be (the stars) of the night.”
“I thought both goaltenders were outstanding tonight,” said Laxdal. “They made a lot of big saves and it made for some great entertainment for the fans.”
The Oil Kings travel to Medicine Hat on Saturday for the first time this season in what’s expected to be a tough divisional game with the Tigers.