Drumheller Dragons vs Lloydminster Bobcats Tuesday Oct. 8, 2019
Written by: Tyler Campbell
Tuesday was ?Hockey hooky day? at the Centennial Civic Centre. The building was packed. The kids were VERY loud. And coming off two real strong efforts over the weekend it seemed like everything was set for the Lloydminster Bobcats to have a big game on Tuesday afternoon against the Drumheller Dragons. And it simply never happened. The Bobcats had a very disappointing performance as the fell to the Dragons by a score of 6-1.
The Dragons opened the scoring at the 4:04 mark of the 1st as Nikolas de Beurs simply won a race to the puck off a dump and banked it off Josh Dias from behind the net. Scout Truman would make it 2-0 Dragons as he took a sneaky cross crease pass from his brother Roc Truman and made no mistake. Eric Martin then made it 3-0 for the Dragons at 12:14 of the 1st and despite the play being pretty even in the period, the Dragons were in control as the two teams went to the intermission.
The 2nd period became the Josh Dias show as the Bobcats netminder was under siege, yet keeping the Bobcats in it as he made at least three highlight reel saves. The shots through 19 minutes of the period were 20-3 for the Dragons. In the final minute of the frame however the Bobcats sprung to life. Ty Mosimann got the Cats on the board at 19:09, which was followed by a real hard shift by the Mack-Adrian-McLean line that saw them nearly cut it to 3-2, and then draw a tripping penalty before the period had ended. All of a sudden, the Bobcats were headed to the 3rd with the deficit cut to two and 1:58 left on a man advantage.
But the air went out of the balloon early in the 3rd as the Dragons killed off the Bobcats power play and then got one of their own that they made no mistake on as Kaden Hanas made it 4-1. From that point on, the Bobcats simply could not find their game as Hasan Akl made it 5-1, then Eric Martin got his 2nd of the game to cap off the scoring and make it a 6-1 final. Final shots on the night were just as troubling as the score as the Dragons put a whopping 63 shots on Josh Dias to just 20 for the Cats.
There was no sugar coating a disappointing loss like that, and head coach Nigel Dube wasn?t making any excuses after the game. ?You look at the games that we had last week and we were moving along and doing the right things going forward, and today we hit a wall. Maybe you could say we took 7 steps forward the last little while, but today it feels like we took a step back in that.? Despite the disappointment, Dube isn?t about to lose focus on what he is looking to build and the pieces he has in place. ?If you sit down and look at the pieces that we have, we can?t be saying it after game 45 obviously, but if we put these pieces together, do the small things, and get back on the horse on Friday we should be fine.?
It isn?t about to get an easier for the Cats. Friday they go to Camrose, thanksgiving Monday they?re in Brooks to face the defending RBC champs, Tuesday they?ll be in Okotoks, and less than 24 hours later they?re in Drumheller for a rematch with the Dragons. Easily their toughest road trip of the season, especially the final 3 games of it that sees the Cats playing 3 games in 44 hours with the game in Drumheller being their own ?hockey hooky? game, therefore a noon puck drop. A real tough test. But for such a young club, it might be good to face this kind of adversity now. This is a build. Everyone knows that. And there isn?t a shortcut or way to fast track it. When organizations start looking for those, they just get themselves into even more trouble. It might not be fun, but seeing adversity like this early in the season could pay off huge for this squad later on in the season.
Puck drop in Camrose on Friday night is 7PM, and you can check out the action on Hockey TV. Cats are back at home Friday October 25th as the Fort McMurray Oil Barons come to town.
