Edmonton falls 5-2 to Saint John

Press Release

Shawinigan, QC - It’s still anybody’s tournament. The Saint John Sea Dogs survived a big push from the Edmonton Oil Kings and scored a couple of late insurance goals to pull out a 5 – 2 victory Monday night. Minnesota Wild first round draft pick Zack Phillips scored a pair of goals and Florida Panthers top pick Jonathan Huberdeau added a pair of points for Saint John. The Sea Dogs win means all 4 teams at the 2012 MasterCard Memorial Cup have identical 1 – 1 records with just 2 games to be played in the round robin portion of the tournament.

"We are a team that battles adversity and we've done it all year." said Oil Kings Alternate Captain Keegan Lowe "We will be in a good position to prepare for tomorrow night."

The Sea Dogs opened the scoring just over 4 minutes into the game on what seemed like a harmless play. Minnesota Wild draft pick Zack Phillips picked up a puck that was rimmed around the boards and fired a shot from the side boards near the hash marks. He caught Laurent Brossoit screened on the play for his first of the tournament to give the Sea Dogs the 1 – 0 lead.

Edmonton had the answer on the powerplay. Rhett Rachinski won an offensive face-off back to Captain Mark Pysyk. His wrister from the point was tipped neatly on the backhand by Kristians Pelss in front of the net. The goal stood up to video review and evened the score just 2:40 after the Sea Dogs marker.

Saint John went ahead about 5 minutes into the second period. Team USA standout from the World Junior Hockey Championship Charlie Coyle was able to spring Sea Dogs Captain Jonathan Huberdeau for a breakaway from the blue line in. He made no mistake with a nice move to the backhand and beat Brossoit for his first of the tournament.

The Sea Dogs would get a lucky break on their third goal. Coyle busted into the Edmonton zone and put on the brakes for a shot deflected off both Oil Kings defencemen. Danick Gauthier received credit for the goal to make it 3 – 1.

The Oil Kings bounced right back just 63 seconds later on a nice goal from the heroes in Game 1. This time it was Henrik Samuelsson returning the favour for Stephane Legault. Samuelsson chipped a pass to Legault alone in front and he caught goaltender Mathieu Corbeil scrambling and out of position. Leagult’s first of the tourney and second point made it a one goal hockey game with twenty minutes to go.

Phillips second of the night came when Mark Pysyk blew a tire behind his own net. That gave Tomas Jurco all kinds of time to tee it up for Phillips in the slot. That made it 4 – 2 with 1:37 to go in regulation. Ryan Tesink added the empty netter.

Monday’s result sets up the first time in Memorial Cup history that all teams have been tied with 1 – 1 records. That record dates back to 1983 when the Canadian Hockey League adopted the tournament’s current format. Edmonton will wrap up the round robin portion of the tourney Tuesday night with a battle against the Ontario Hockey League Champion London Knights. An Oil Kings victory combined with a Saint John loss to host Shawinigan would launch Edmonton directly to the final on Sunday May 27th.

(Nathan can be reached at fourniern@students.nescom.edu)