By John K. White
The Sherwood Park Saints jumped on the Sturgeon Mustangs early and delivered a defensive diamond to earn the U18 2025 Edmonton Minor Hockey Week gold medal Saturday night.
Looking back on the season series with the Mustangs, the Saints likely had a single line on the dressing room whiteboard: Just skate away.
In the first two meetings, the Saints found themselves shorthanded frequently, in several cases down two men. A tiering-round defeat was followed by another in the regular season as the Saints tallied 33 penalty minutes in the rematch.
They turned that around in their Minor Hockey Week meetings, dropping the Mustangs 4-1 Jan. 11 and 5-1 Jan. 18 in the trophy-hoisting win at the ever-bustling Booster Juice Recreation Centre in Terwillegar.
It may have been a frosty pre-game walk in the minus-40 air from the jammed parking lot to the arena for the players, but that chill was likely eased by the presence of gold medals around the necks on the return trek.
Easton Roy scored a pair of goals in the first seven minutes to stun the opposition, and he added two assists to lead the offence. Limemate Anraj Dhaliwal tallied a goal and two assists, with Ryan Clark and Bryson Oleksyn scoring singles. Nathan Yasinko, Dawson MacMillan and Blake Will also provided assists. Carsten Scheuer nearly landed the shutout, making 19 saves on 20 shots.
Early lead key
With the early two-goal lead, the Saints shifted gears to focus on relentless defensive pressure and back support, stifling any thought of a Mustangs comeback as the seconds ticked away through the running-time periods. The deficit seemed to weigh more than normal on the Mustangs with the running time format.
Most of the Mustangs shots were delivered from the perimeter, though Scheuer came up big when needed in net, and only gave up the shutout bid on a laser from Mustangs standout forward Joseph Seguin late in the third.
A scary third-period injury to a Mustangs skater following a massive collision with two Saints players and the boards that took the air out of the building. Though he managed to slowly skate off of the ice with help from two team officials, the player was clearly struggling. Saints forward David Fleming received a boarding major and game misconduct after the play. The severity of penalization may have been partly to quell any notion of retaliation, as it was difficult to spot intent on the chaotic multi-player hit near the boards.
It is challenging enough to make a comeback in a key game in any circumstance, but the emotional stomach drop after that incident likely made it a taller ask for the Mustangs.
Despite what often happens when a teammate goes down and leaves a game, the Mustangs managed to focus most of their energy on evening the score on the clock, though their lone goal came too late to change momentum in a meaningful way.
Byfuglien would have been proud
Special mention should be given to forward Dominic Amyotte-Lorenson, who resembled a vintage Dustin Byfuglien by playing keep-away against three Mustangs defenders behind the opposition net, killing nearly two minutes off of the clock in the waning minutes.
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Game photos by Kurtis Fray, John K. White and Bill Clark
