The Prince Albert Mintos couldn’t pull off the weekend sweep as they fell 6-3 to the Estevan Bears on Sunday afternoon at the Art Hauser Centre
Assistant coach Bryan Swystun says the Mintos did not play the way they need to in order to earn two points.
“I thought it was a total different effort than last night. I thought that we probably weren’t as prepared as individuals. In terms of what we wanted to do as a team in all three zones, it was kind of disappointing. We needed to come in here and sweep these guys, just put some distance between us and them and some other teams. We failed to do that, it was not a good outcome for us today.”
After a turnover in the Minto zone, Chase Holt would open the scoring for Estevan less than five minutes into the second period with his fifth goal of the campaign. Taye Shukin had the lone helper.
Estevan would jump out to a 2-0 lead less then thirty seconds later as Roan Burgess would strike for his 14th goal of the season, Thomas Ries and Jase McNichol assisted on the play.
Prince Albert would answer back with 8:06 to go in the middle frame as Raydr Wallington would pick up his second goal of the season. Taite Donkin had the lone assist.
The Minto power play would knot the score at the 3:01 mark as Kale Margolis would blast home his 18th goal of the season on the man advantage. Taite Donkin and Van Taylor assisted on the play.
Shots favored Prince Albert 28-18 after forty minutes of play.
We showed glimpses of playing well. There was a stretch of 10-12 minutes, where we scored two goals, tied it up. We were feeling good in the room in between second and third, expecting to come out third and make a game of it. Then it didn’t turn out that way. They scored three quick ones. We didn’t really respond after that. And it was a tough game to watch.”
Estevan would respond with a power play marker of their own with 17:56 remaining in the third period as Thomas Ries would give the Bears the lead with his 12th goal of the season. Talen Wallis and McNichol assisted on the play.
Talen Wallis would give the Bears their second two goal lead of the hockey game at the 14:36 mark as he would pick up his 16th goal of the season . Gunnar Moore and Evhan Allan assisted on the play.
The Estevan lead would extend to three with Jase McNichol’s 12th goal of the season just thirty five seconds later. Burgess and Carter Onrait assisted on the play.
Swystun says the Mintos took home a valuable lesson from the game that will help them down the stretch for the remainder of the season.
“We’ll take away from today that we have to be prepared in these situations. All the games going down the stretch here are important. We don’t have a night off. And if you don’t mentally prepare and get ready to play, teams that are below you are going to come in and beat you. This league has good parity. Any team can beat any team on any given night and we got beat today.”
Kaden Perron made 31 saves for the Bears while Josh Henry made 22 stops for Prince Albert.
The Mintos return to action on Thursday evening when they welcome the Notre Dame Hounds to the Art Hauser Centre. Puck drops at 7 p.m
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