FORT MCMURRAY – The Canmore Eagles beat the frack out of the Fort McMurray Oil Barons.
Kayden Rawji scored 43 seconds into overtime of Game 3 to give the Eagles a 3-2 comeback victory Sunday night (March 10) in Fort McMurray and sweep the best-of-five play-in series.
With the win, the Eagles advance to the AJHL playoffs starting Friday (March 15).
“I saw Rhett [Dekowny] driving [to the net] and I was trying to get over to him and I got a fortunate bounce,” said Rawji, a 19-year-old winger, about the biggest goal of his career.
All series, a point of the Eagles game plan was to pepper Fort McMurray’s goalie Gage Stewart with shots, who saw 142 pucks over three games.
“We were relentless on the puck,” said Andrew Milne, Eagles head coach and general manager. “I thought we did a good job of taking away their time and space, and with that, we were able to put pressure on them.”
Down two games heading into Game 3, the Oil Barons put up their best fight of the series at home.
In the first period, Eagles defenceman Brody Mortensen found the back of the net to give the birds a 1-0 lead going into the first intermission.
The second period, however, was all Oil Barons’ as Carter Schmidt and Jaxon Priddle helped give their club their first lead of the series.
Some late game heroics wasn’t ruled out of the equation though, courtesy of Eagles’ Nathan MacPherson-Ridgewell. After Oil Barons’ Brett Boucher was sent to the sin bin for tripping, MacPherson-Ridgewell capitalized on the man advantage, with less than four minutes remaining in the third.
With renewed life, all it took was 43 seconds into the extra period when Rawji ended the series with an unassisted goal.
“It was a great team win,” said Rawji. “We battled hard the entire way. [Eagles goalie Matthew] Malin kept us in it at times and he made some huge saves. It was just a great team win all around.”
HIGHLIGHTS ▶️ The Eagles are the first team to advance from the Play-In Series to the @inter_pipeline Cup AJHL Playoffs with an OT win last night. The Storm took a 2-1 series lead over the Grizzlys in OT, and the Kodiaks lead their series 2-1 after a road win in Drayton Valley. pic.twitter.com/KblN7pTQiv
— TheAJHL (@TheAJHL) March 11, 2024
Malin went 3-0 in the series, with one shutout, and a .958 save percentage.
“I was just playing hockey and having fun, the pucks just come to you when you’re having fun,” he said.
Malin added that with the sweep comes extra days of rest and recovery.
“We need the time off to heal because I know the next team is ready to come in and jump on us so we need to have somewhat of a footing on those guys, too,” said Malin. “Otherwise, we’d just be going in all bruised up and they’re just going to come down on us hard, but I think we got the opportunity to even the playing field.”
The Eagles have four days off before the playoffs start Friday.
As of Sunday, the Eagles next opponent is not set, but it will be either the No. 2 Lloydminster Bobcats or the No. 3 Calgary Canucks. In order for the Eagles to play the Canucks, the No. 11 Olds Grizzlys must defeat the No. 6 Grande Prairie Storm.
The Grizzlys are currently down 2-1 in that play-in series.
The top five teams have already made the playoffs and it will be played between the top eight teams. Those teams are the Whitecourt Wolverines (1), Bobcats (2), Canucks (3), Bonnyville Pontiacs (4), and Drumheller Dragons (5).
