Although the St. Paul Jr. B Canadiens took home two wins from this weekend’s games, the wins weren’t very pretty or easy to achieve, and the team was left shorthanded after Friday’s physical game against Vermilion.
The Canadiens faced off against the Vermilion Tigers at the Clancy Richard Arena on Jan. 8. The home team took the lead late in the first period with a goal scored by Kyle Braybrook and assisted by Zach Sylvestre.
But it was also the Canadiens who started racking up the game’s many penalties earlier in the game. Mikael Beaudoin’s slashing minor just under eight minutes into the first period was one of a handful of penalties that kicked off the game in the first 20 minutes.
“It wasn’t very pretty to watch obviously,” says assistant coach Corey deMoissac, when speaking of Friday’s game. He added that despite the team’s performance, it was good to get back on the ice after the Christmas break and work out the kinks.
He admits the team didn’t play as good as they could have, “But to be a good team you have to find ways to win even though things aren’t clicking.”
The second period wouldn’t see any scoring, but there was a much longer list of penalties, with Vermilion finding the penalty box more often than the Canadiens throughout those 20 minutes. The first game misconduct was handed to Trent Dutchak from the Tigers at 9:55 in the second.
A rough third period resulted in a long list of penalties and a number of game misconducts for both the Canadiens and the Tigers. A number of players would leave the ice just passed the halfway point of the third period.
Sylvestre would score a goal at 15:32, assisted by Beaudoin and Ryley Wozniak. But a couple minutes later, both teams would see a long list of players again handed game misconducts and heading to the change room after a number of brawls broke out.
The game was called with 1:30 left on the clock. The final score was 2-0 in favour of the Canadiens. Goalie David Rupp would earn the shutout.
“It’s not something that you want to see transpire,” says deMoissac, when speaking of how the game finished. He added that he wasn’t really sure why things got out of hand at the end, and although some people may have questioned the decisions made by the referees during the game, deMoissac noted that the referees have the right to make those decisions.
A number of the Canadiens’ players would miss out on Saturday’s game in Saddle Lake due to the events that transpired Friday night. Some of the players will likely miss a few more games due to suspensions, according to deMoissac, although he wasn’t sure yet how many games those players would miss.
“There’s a few kids that won’t play for a while,” says deMoissac. “It is what it is, and you move on with the guys that you have.”
With less than a month left in the regular season, deMoissac says he’s looking ahead, and preparing for a big weekend with the guys that are left. St. Paul will meet up with the Vegreville Rangers on Friday at home at 8 p.m., and then the team will head to Lloydminster for an away game on Saturday.
On Jan. 20, the team will travel to Vegreville for a mid-week rematch against the Rangers.
Although the Canadiens are sitting in third place overall in the league, they are sitting one step higher when it comes to the number of penalty minutes they’ve seen this season.
The team’s PIM (Penalties in Minutes) sits at 1,306, with only the Killam Wheat Kings sitting higher at 1,335. The Saddle Lake Warriors are in the opposite position, and the team has the second lowest number of PIM in the league at 591. Only the Frog Lake T-Birds are lower at 566. The T-Birds are currently ranked in eighth place in the league, with Saddle Lake sitting in tenth place.
