Fort McMurray has been pushed to the brink of elimination. Falling 4-1 to the Canmore Eagles, the Oil Barons showed a better effort on the road than in game one, however the offense continued to struggle.
Canmore came out hot in the first 12 minutes of the hockey game. 44 seconds in the Eagles would open the scoring. A scramble in Gage Stewart’s crease saw the puck pop out to Logan Ziegler, who scored his third goal of the postseason. The Eagles then made it 2-0 less than four minutes into the contest. Rhett Dekowny put the puck into the path of Tyler Loughman, who drove the net and beat Stewart with a backhand, doubling Canmore’s lead. The Eagles padded their lead with another marker. On the power-play, Emanuel Hudson fed Zach Coutu in the right face-off circle and the rookie from Edmonton unleashed a one-timer to make it 3-0 Canmore. Fort McMurray responded with a power-play goal of their own. In a mad scramble in the crease, Zayden Sadlemyer got the last touch of the puck, steering it past Matthew Malin for the Oil Barons’ first goal of the Play-In series, cutting the deficit to 3-1. Canmore restored their three goal advantage in the second period. On a 2-on-1, Dekowny dished off a perfect pass to Loughman for his second goal of the night, making it 4-1 Eagles. Despite a litany of chances at either end, neither team could find the back of the net again, and Fort McMurray finds themselves down 2-0 in the series.
The Oil Barons will try to stave off elimination when the series switches to Centerfire Place on Sunday. Puck drop for the game is at 7:30pm and tickets are still available at the Oil Barons box office and online https://tickets.fortmcmurrayoilbarons.ca/