The Carson Lambos sweepstakes kicked off Friday night at the Scotiabank Saddledome as the Edmonton Oil Kings got the upper hand in the rights to draft the Rink Hockey Academy blue liner.
In actuality, the Calgary Hitmen (19-33-5-2) were the real winners, as they downed their Central Division rivals 4-1 and jumped one point ahead of the basement-dwelling Oil Kings (18-34-6-2). The two teams will play one three more times as the season sorts itself out.
With nine Oil Kings on the Western Hockey League Injury Report, the road team started three affiliated players against the Hitmen. The Hitmen out-worked the Oil Kings all night, as it wasn’t too long ago that they were trotting out a similar young lineup.
“Obviously you pay attention to who’s up and what their lineup looks like, but our approach always has been to pay attention to ourselves and to get the best out of ourselves first,” said Hitmen Head Coach Dallas Ferguson. “This is two games in a row now that we have formed the identity that we have been working for. Now it’s about keeping it going.”
Through the good and bad this season; the injured lineups and the few luxurious games where healthy scratches were possibilities, Jake Kryski and Jakob Stukel have been at the centre of any Hitmen production night-in and night-out.
Vancouver’s Kryski entered tonight’s affair second on the Hitmen with 37 points and just shook the monkey off his back that slowed him down for nine games.
Only recording one point in his previous nine outings before recording his 150th career point, Kryski has caught fire again.
Thanks to a short-handed breakaway by the birthday boy Tristen Nielsen at the end of the first, the Hitmen started the second with a lengthy two-man advantage.
“We weren’t play as individuals out there. Overall, we wanted to get the puck deep into their defensive zone and go to work,” said Stukel, who leads the Hitmen with 45 points. “In our zone, we kept them to the outside, our defence did a great job getting in front of our own net and boxed out their players.”
The Hitmen spent the majority of the frame in the Oil Kings’ zone. It all started when Egor Zamula put one on a tee for Kryski at the point, who bombed one past Josh Dechaine.
Kryski wasn’t done there, as he found twine for the second time of the period when Stukel back-handed a shot from the point. Kryski temporarily stopped it in front of the net. Quickly, Kryski changed the path of the puck and shoveled in his 13th of the season, giving him 154 points in his career.
“It was nice to get one early and get some confidence to play with, maybe hold the puck a little longer and things went my way,” said Kryski. “Consistency is something I have to work on. I went through a little slump, but hopefully we keep this going and stay hot down the stretch.”
The 20-year-old Stukel also got in on the scoring, when Kryski paid his teammate back with a spinning pass off the half wall across the ice. Stukel gathered and ripped home his 29th of the season over the blocker of Dechaine at the 17:03 mark of the second, putting the Hitmen up 4-1.
“Kryski made a nice play to me and I tried to get the shot off as quick as possible,” said Stukel, who recently played in his 250th game. “I was lucky enough to get it past the goalie.”
The somewhat new combo of Stukel, Riley Stotts and Kryski combined for eight points tonight and earned all three star selections.
“That line is starting to move the puck and not be worried about who’s going to shoot. They are three talented people and are all proven guys at creating offence,” said Ferguson. “They were struggling there for a bit when they were trying to figure out who would be the shooter and who would drive to the net. Scoring is their forte, so if they keep doing the little things away from the puck correctly, the offensive stuff will come easier.”
Also finding the back of the net was Carson Focht, who now has 10 on the season.
Playing with more confidence these days, Cael Zimmerman took a poor pass through the neutral zone from Vladislav Yeryomenko. He quickly realized he was out of options and flipped the rubber over to Focht, who took two quick strides and shelved one past Dechaine at the 11:56 mark of the first.
At the other end of the ice, Hitmen netminder Nick Schneider wasn’t that busy. His 14 stops tied the fewest amount of saves he has been required to make in a game that he has started and won during his lengthy and successful WHL career.
The Oil Kings only managed two shots in the second period and needed a couple incredible bounces to tuck one past Schneider.
Tomas Soustal tried to carry the puck into the Hitmen zone, but the long, sweeping stick of Zamula temporarily poked the puck away from Soustal. Moving left, the Czech Republic product stayed with it and fired on net, only to have his shot attempt blocked by Yeryomenko. Still, Soustal stayed with in, gathered his rebound and dumped a backhand into the open net while Schneider was still trying to gather himself from the first shot attempt. A couple lucky bounces and Soustal found himself crack the 50-point barrier for the first time in his four-year career.
The Hitmen can pull even further ahead of the Oil Kings in the race for the No. 1 overall pick and set a season-high with their third-straight win Sunday afternoon when they host the Brandon Wheat Kings (31-24-3-2) at 4 p.m.
