After an extremely successful road trip over the weekend that saw the Fort McMurray Oil Barons extend their win streak to seven games, the MOB returned home for a mid-week game against the last place Drayton Valley Thunder Wednesday night.
The Thunder (14-38-3) jumped on the MOB (39-11-3) early and survived a late flurry of chances from the Barons to stun the home side 4-3.
“It was embarrassing,” said MOB Head Coach Tom Keca about his team’s performance. “It was embarrassing that we had to put our home fans through that.”
A sluggish start from the MOB forced Chris Curr to make several big saves in the opening minutes of the game. After a scramble in front, Vincent Beaudry touched the puck to Felix Meunier who beat Curr who had lost his stick in the chaos as the Thunder led 1-0 6:18 in.
The Barons were able to get in behind the Thunder defence several times throughout the night as Will Conley broke in alone but was stopped by Shawn Parkinson. Peter Tomaras would find himself on a breakaway moments after Conley and pulled the puck to the backhand and beat Parkinson up under the crossbar to tie the game 1-1.
A late powerplay would see the Thunder take the lead. A shot from Marc-Antoine Benoit bounced off Curr and went straight up in the air falling in behind the goaltender. Taner Miller quickly swept the puck under Curr but the call on the ice was a goal and after a deliberation with the goal judge it was deemed the puck did cross the line.
“It’s unfortunate that you’re going to have this type of effort after a seven game winning streak and having a great road trip and to come home and lay an egg like this it’s extremely disappointing,” said Keca who’s team was coming off a dominating performance on Sunday in an 8-3 win over Sherwood Park.
The second period saw the Barons carry the majority of the play but a lack of defensive awareness would see the Thunder strike twice and open up a 4-1 lead. Branden Voss had a great back door pass to Michael Boutoussov who buried a shot past Curr. Some controversy on the fourth Thunder goal as Malik Kaddourra bumped into Curr and the two players fell to the ice. With the puck at the blueline and the MOB appearing to head up ice, the collision went unnoticed. Korbyn Chabot held the line and fired the puck at the net and Kaddourra popped up and banged it in.
Keca said he was not given an explanation on the goal but the replay showed clear goaltender interference.
The Oil Barons pushed in the third period, outshooting the Thunder 14-1 and showed a much more determined effort but it would be too little too late. After goals from Coy Prevost and Taner Miller cut the lead to one, the MOB could not beat Parkinson again as the netminder made 36 saves to pick up the win on his 19th birthday.
“Full credit to Drayton Valley, they came in they played hard, they finished checks, they kept it simple and we prepped our guys exactly about what it was going to be about and we talked about the hardest thing that we were going to do at the start of the game was challenge our players to play at our pace and our level and try to get them to play with us…we’ve said time and time again that we control our own destiny and this was extremely disappointing,” said Keca.
The MOB will host the Thunder again Thursday night at the Casman Centre. Puck drop is at 7:30 p.m.
