The Sylvan Lake Pirates are still searching for their first win after a 13-5 loss to the Morinville Kings on Oct. 14.
The first few minutes of the opening period were promising with Justin Lowry (assisted by Justin Moltzahn and Curtis Klein) answering the King’s opening goal, which was scored around two minutes in to the first, with one of his own just 30 seconds later.
From there things started to unravel for the Pirates as the Kings scored five more goals that period, three of them coming during a power play.
“Staying away from the penalties. That’s huge,” said Curtis Klein after the game when asked what the team needs to improve on. “The whole first period was all penalties.”
After the intermission the Pirates came out and had a strong second period outscoring the Kings four to two.
The four goal scoring drive kicked off with 7:32 left in the period with a goal by Jaret Smith from Darel Northcott.
The Pirates’ third goal of the game came two and a half minutes later from Mike McAdam (assisted by Cody Lemon and Kyran Karol).
The fourth and fifth goals came near the end of the period and within about a minute of each other.
With 2:14 left the Pirates’ Cole Degraaf found the back of the net with the assist going to Troy Klaus, and then with 1:36 to go before the intermission Mike McAdam scored his second goal of the game (from Cody Lemon and Anthony Pickering).
But the final period brought back the penalty minutes. By the end of the game the Pirates had clocked a total of 20 minutes in the box.
The Pirates went into the third down 8-5, but after a string of five goals by the Kings the final buzzer went off to a final score of 13-5 for the Morinville Kings.
“We just need to learn where everyone’s going to be at the right time,” said Ryan Burns. “We’ve just got to learn how to play hockey together.”
Pirates’ teammate Eric Moltzahn added there are positives to take away from every game and they need to move forward from here.
Burns also stated he thinks discipline is an issue.
“Our d-zone definitely needs some help just getting it all sorted out there,” said Moltzahn. “The heart and the want to win is in the room and that’s evident, but our comebacks, we don’t give up, but there are just some collapses that we’re having that need to be fixed.”
Burns and Klein also said their power plays need to be worked on, as well as their accountability and their support for each other on the ice.
“We’ll just keep ramping it up and we’ll just hopefully take some of the good from this game and then carry on to our next game,” said Klein.
The Pirates’ next game is Oct. 20 in Penhold against the Red Deer Rustlers at 7 p.m.
They will return to home ice the following day for a 2 p.m. puck drop in Bentley when they face off against the Daysland Stars.
