Saints Unable To Find Hole In Storm’s Defence

03/04/2009 07:40

Grande Prairie stifles Spruce Grove in game 1

They had 60 minutes to plug away in search of an answer, but the Spruce Grove Saints were unable to solve the puzzle that is the Grande Prairie Storm's defence.

The Storm blocked shots, got sticks on loose pucks and controlled the shot count on Wednesday night. For their efforts they skated out of Grant Fuhr Arena with a 3-0 victory in Game 1 of the Enerflex Cup, the Alberta Junior Hockey League's championship series.

Saints head coach Mike Vandekamp said his team lacked the hunger they needed to win.

"I thought we absolutely were a second-place team, in every facet of the game," he said.

"We weren't first to pucks, we weren't first to battles, we didn't want to generate anything. We didn't want to shoot and it was a snowball effect, and whew," he said, with his eyebrows perking, "a pretty good snowball by the end of it."

Chad Carder made 28 saves in the Grande Prairie net for the shutout, with Spruce Grove's Travis Rolheiser also turning aside 28 shots for the Saints in a losing effort.

Storm defenceman Mark Stojan spearheaded his team's defensive showcase, putting his body in front of 10 of the Storm's 23 blocked shots on the night. Spruce Grove managed seven blocked shots in their end.

"Mark's been a warrior for us on the back end all year," Storm assistant coach Blaine Bablitz said. "It's a part of his game and he's really good at it.

"It's good when one of your leaders is willing to do that for your team because it filters through to all of the younger guys in the environment."

"A lot of time (my focus is on) the defensive side of the game," Stojan said. "I like blocking shots, the penalty kill, that's been my role for the team."

Storm right-winger Tanner Fritz broke open the scoreless affair 3:52 into the second period when he wired a shot top shelf past Rolheiser from the right faceoff circle.

Grande Prairie's power-play unit came through with the offence for the rest of the night. On the team's fourth power play of the game, centre Carter Rowney doubled his team's lead at 17:22 of the second period.

Grande Prairie native Dennis Rix's howitzer from a tough angle got the best of Rolheiser with one second remaining in the Storm's man advantage at 7:41 of the third period.

Grande Prairie finished 2-for-5 on the power play, to the delight of a supportive Storm contingent in the crowd of 1,473. Spruce Grove went 0-for-6 with the man advantage.

"I'd say there's a whole lot more things than our power play that let us down. That was the tip of the iceberg," Vandekamp said. "When we did decide to shoot, you could have timed it on a sundial. That's ... wow. At 35 (years) and 30 pounds overweight, I might have been able to get in the shooting lane."

When the Storm weren't zeroed in on the task at hand, they were lucky. Spruce Grove blue-liner Brendan Lines saw his shot from the point zip past Carder, only to clang off the post and back into play late in the first period. A great effort from Saints winger Joshua Lazowski had Carder beat in the opening minute of the third period, but the puck slid through the crease and trickled behind the net.

Vandekamp is optimistic about his team's effort for tonight's 7 p.m. rematch at Grant Fuhr Arena with the Storm in this best-of-seven series.

"We'll find a way," he said. "We're very resilient. We've had losses this year and turned it around in short order."

SWIVEL HIPS SAYS:

Hopefully, the Spruce Grove Saints (formerly the St. Albert Saints) were able to turn it around in Game 2, which was scheduled to go in the Grove last night.