“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work” is a nugget Canmore Eagles head coach Andrew Milne likes to trot out in interviews on occasion.
After a pair of lacklustre AJHL performances against mediocre teams such as the Drayton Valley Thunder and Sherwood Park Crusaders, Milne has plenty of reason to bring it up again.
The Eagles fell 3-2 to Drayton Valley on Friday (Nov. 20), and followed that up with another 3-2 loss to the Crusaders to snap a six-game winning streak.
“I didn’t think we were good enough tonight to win. We’ve been good lately, and I think that caught up to us,” Milne said after the Drayton Valley loss.
Braden Saretsky scored both goals for the Eagles, but it was too little, too late for the rest of the club.
“We looked like we thought it would be easy and it wasn’t. That caught up to us. Our best period was our third, but it was too little, too late,” Milne said. “We got a little cocky at the start of the game.”
Drayton Valley got on the board early off a bad bounce that eluded goaltender Ryan Bontorin to give the visiting team an extra jump. Matt Benko then put them up by two on the power play.
The Eagles were outhustled for much of the game, and too often opted for the extra pass instead of taking the shot. Milne said if the team learns from the game, it will be better off moving ahead. The Eagles are still sitting in third place in the southern division, four points behind the Brooks Bandits and five points behind the first-place Camrose Kodiaks.
“We thought we could do the nice plays instead of the efficient play, and that caught up to us. That’s a good wakeup call for us. This was a team that was going to come for us. We have a target on our backs from where we sit in the standings. Our guys need to know that. That’s something our team has never been used to. That’s something they have to get used to,” Milne said.
Saretsky said the team needs to work on its starts. Now that the win streak is over, he believes some of the cockiness that had crept into their game should disappear.
“I thought maybe we came out slow in the first and it cost us a bit. They’re not any better than us. They just work hard. They get pucks deep. They outworked us that first period,” Saretsky said.
The Eagles take on the Calgary Mustangs on Saturday night (Nov. 28) for their final home game of November. They play at the Banff Fenlands Arena on Dec. 8.
