The Oil Capitals won their second in a row on Saturday night with a gritty 3-2 win over the visiting Winkler Flyers at Tundra Oil and Gas Place.
After a scoreless first period the Oil Caps opened the scoring at 2:26 of the second period after Hunter Cloutier stripped a Flyer defenceman of the puck and went in alone to score his team leading 9th goal of the season.
Winkler answered back just under 3 minutes later on a goal by Everett Bestland with assists going to Eric Fawkes and Colton Friesen. Parker Brakebill put the Oil Caps back on top late in the second period (11:52) assisted by Mason Fischer, making it 2-1 moving into the 3rd.
Late into the 3rd period Blake Sidoni scored his first as an Oil Cap with a power play goal (14:46) assisted by Kolten Kanaski and Jayden Wojciechowski to give the Oil Caps a 3-1 lead. The Flyers would make it 3-2 late on a power play goal by former Oil Cap Jesse Korytko (18:02) assisted by Bestland and Erik Dahl. The Oil Caps battled hard to hang on to the lead for their 4th win of the season and into a tie with the OCN Blizzard at 13 pts, 6 back of the Selkirk Steelers for the 8th and final playoff spot.
Dalton Dosch was solid in the Oil Caps net stopping 35 of the 37 shots he faced. Britt League was in net for the Flyers saving 24 out of 27 shots on goal.
“I didn’t think we had the best start, but I thought the back half of the 1st period was good. I liked the way we battled in the 3rd period, got a power play goal and some key blocks near the end of the game. if we start doing more of those little things, then games will start going out way.”