It wasn't easy, as it took persevering through a feisty battle in Whitecourt and recovering from a blown four-goal lead in Grande Prairie, but the Bonnyville Jr. A Pontiacs picked up two victories last week to hit the 40-win mark and set a new franchise record.
“It is unreal; definitely a special feeling,” said captain Steenn Pasichnuk. “It is a great group of guys to do it with that is for sure.”
Alden Dupuis, Brandon Whistle, Bryan Gerstenfeld, Brinson Pasichnuk and Chad Hurtubise all scored on the power play as Bonnyville went 5-for-17 with the man advantage and dismantled Whitecourt 7-0 on March 1.
After taking just one minor penalty in the first period the hometown Wolverines carved a solid path to the penalty box in the second and third periods, compiling 194 penalty minutes by the games end. Bonnyville racked up 108 penalty minutes, but kept their cool for the most part, only giving Whitecourt two power play opportunities.
“People fought when they had to fight and everyone had each other's back. Anytime something bad happened we had players going after their players to let them know it wasn't alright,” said Pontiacs captain Steenn Pasichnuk, who picked up 14 penalty minutes in the contest.
The Wolverines were clearly out to send a message against the Pontiacs taking 14 ten-minute misconducts, instigating fights and throwing high hits to the head. The shenanigans was lead by the trio of Josh Bishop, Matt Gervais and Hubert Deslisle, who all amassed over 27 penalty minutes apiece.
“We knew that they were going to try and goad us into some rough stuff,” said Pasichnuk. “We had the mentality that we had to stick together as a team and protect each other, but we also didn't want to get into their type of game and start taking a lot of penalties.”
Instead of joining Whitecourt in all of the tomfoolery the Pontiacs did their best to back away from the Wolverines, which lead to them getting an astonishing 17 power play opportunities over the course of the contest.
Dupuis notched his sixth power play goal of the season 2:35 into the game to get Bonnyville on the board. His 18th of the season was followed by goals from Chasetan Braid and Bryan Gerstenfeld, sending the Pontiacs into the first intermission up 3-0.
Whistle scored the only goal of the second period notching his 18th of the year at 3:52 of the middle frame.
Gerstenfeld kicked off the scoring in the third period by notching his second of the game and seventh of the year at 11:46. The goal was the first of three power play markers Bonnyville would add in the frame. Brinson chipped in with his 20th at 17:42 before Hurtubise capped off the scoring with his 12th at 19:44.
Bonnyville netminder Olivier Charest stopped 28 shots en route to his sixth shutout of the season.
Gunnar Neilsen took over between the pipes the following night as Bonnyville took on the last place Grande Prairie Storm in their final game of the regular season.
The Pontiacs dominated the first 30 minutes of the game and jumped out to a 4-0 lead by the midway point of the second period, but swayed away from their structure as the game went on and allowed the Storm to climb back into the contest.
McMann opened the scoring at 3:16 before Zack Mills ripped one off the crossbar and in for his 19th of the year at 11:22. Dupuis and Kyler Hehn scored goals 1:15 apart in the second period and Bonnyville appeared to the in complete control.
“I thought we had a pretty good first period and then we started to get a little bit individual and that allowed us to take penalties and do things that are uncharacteristic,” said Pontiacs head coach and GM Rick Swan.
Former Pontiac Luke Mahura, made his final AJHL home game a memorable one, by notching four points in a span of 5:56 to bring the Storm even with the Pontiacs.
Mahura's 20th goal of the season came at 13:12 and got the Grande Prairie offence started. The 20-year-old St. Albert native would go on to score again at 15:09 and 16:04 to complete the natural hat trick in just 2:52. He would pick up an assist on a goal by Ian McLellan with 54 seconds remaining in the middle frame to help tie the game 4-4.
“Everybody was just trying to stay positive. We knew that if we stuck to our structure we would come out and get the win,” said forward Brandon Whistle. “We came out in the third period thinking it was a 0-0 game and just wanted to win the period, which we did.”
It was Whistle who was able to come through for the Pontiacs in the final twenty minutes, snapping his 19th of the season into a wide open net at 8:48 of the third.
“I came down the ice. It was a three-on-two. Brinson passed me the puck in the middle, I passed it to (McMann), skated around the defenceman, Bobby made a great play gave me a wide open net and I scored.”
The goal held up as the game-winner and allowed Bonnyville to walk out of Revolution Arena with a narrow 5-4 victory.
“The biggest thing was that in the dressing room after the game the guys weren't happy. It didn't feel like a true win,” said Swan. They know they can be better and those are the types of things that allow great teams to learn and move on.”
The AJHL playoffs will kick off on Thursday night when Bonnyville returns home to take on the Sherwood Park Crusaders. Game 2 will go Friday night at the RJ Lalonde Arena before the series shifts to Sherwood Park for Game 3 on Sunday night. The first round is a best-of-five series.
