Keegan Lowe - the calm before the storm (in other words, during a pre-game interview. photo: screencap/oilkings.ca)
In hockey, seeing the numbers ‘6’ and ‘1’ on the scoreboard is only fun when it’s your team that’s being represented by the ‘6’. That wasn’t the case for the Edmonton Oil Kings, though, as the Shawinigan Cataractes tallied five unanswered goals (and one that had a weak response) in their 6-1 win over the Oil Kings tonight. Meaning: The Cataractes are going on to the Memorial Cup semi-final, and the Oil Kings are heading home empty-handed. (That is, if you don’t count the still-recent WHL Championship…)
Three. That’s how many games – in a row – that the Oil Kings lost in regulation during this tournament.
It’s also the first time they’ve done it all season.
Not exactly the best time to start losing, if you ask me.
In all seriousness, it really does suck that, after such an amazing season, this is how it’s ended. It’s not the first time a team has gone through something like this, and it won’t be the last, but the Oil Kings were looking for more success in their first-ever (think modern era) trip to the Memorial Cup.
“It’s too bad we couldn’t show it for a full game, because it’s exciting when we play Oil Kings hockey. I’m disappointed that we couldn’t show everyone what we were truly made of, but there’s no excuses now. I tried to believe as long as possible. We were talking about all the times we came back during the season. Everyone was being as positive as possible. We did not want to go out, roll over and die. We wanted to play with the heart in the third period that everyone knew he had and that we played with all year.”
- Keegan Lowe
“We came all this way and didn’t play our best. It’ll sting for a while. If we look back, it was a good year. We won the WHL Championship. We were playing within three days of when the CHL season ends.”
- Mark Pysyk, who led this team to the WHL Championship and Memorial Cup, and won’t be returning to the Oil Kings next season (since he’s too old).
Yannick Veilleux was the one who opened the scoring; midway through the first period he deflected Brandon Gormley’s shot past Laurent Brossoit to put Shawinigan up by one. Morgan Ellis added a power play marker just under ten minutes later off a shot from Gormley and Micheal Chaput. Early in the second, Anton Zlobin scored his third of the tournament to give the Cataractes a 3-0 lead. Just one minute later, Kirill Kabanov’s shot went off the glass and Brossoit’s back before going into the net for an unassisted goal – his first of the tournament. The next Shawinigan goal came at 8:11 on the power play with Michael Bournival giving them a 5-0 lead. Minutes later, Pierre-Olivier Morin scored shorthanded to put them up by six. Henrik Samuelsson was the lone Oil Kings goal scorer off a breakaway where he managed to beat Gabriel Girard and put the Oil Kings on the board. It wasn’t nearly enough, though, and Shawinigan took the 6-1 win and will face off against the Saint John Sea Dogs tomorrow afternoon in the semi-finals.
