Last week the Manitoba Junior Hockey League squad played four games in the seven game series. It went 2-2. That stint ended a period of six contests in a 10-day span.
Head coach Tyson Ramsey said that, to an extent, the team’s recent busy schedule can help prepare it for the upcoming postseason.
“When the playoffs come around, we will be playing almost every other day so to go through a stretch similar to that is helpful for us to evaluate our conditioning and our physical and mental readiness to compete at the highest level possible,” he said.
As previously reported in the Empire-Advance, the Oil Caps beat the Winnipeg Freeze, 6-1, on Feb. 19. Two days later, it downed the same squad 5-1. On Saturday, the Oil Capitals fell 3-2 to the Steinbach Pistons and, on Sunday, they lost 1-0 to the OCN Blizzard. As of Monday, they topped the MJHL MGEU West Division standings with a 35-9-3-3 record. That day they were eighth in the Canadian Junior Hockey League Top 20 rankings.
The Oil Caps play in Winkler on Friday. They return home to tangle with the Neepawa Titans on Saturday. This kicks off a four-game homestand that includes a March 5 tilt with the Dauphin Kings.
OCN 1, Oil Caps 0
Sam Zagari scored the game’s lone goal in the second period on Feb. 25. The Oil Caps outshot the visiting Blizzard, 27-18. Eric Reid stopped 17 shots for Virden. OCN goalie Tomas Anderson made 27 saves for his sixth shutout of the season.
Pistons 3, Oil Caps 2
The Oil Capitals saw their five-game winning streak end on Feb. 24 in Steinbach. Naton Miller got Virden on the board first. However, goals by James Fuchs and Leo Chambers gave Steinbach a 2-1 lead at the end of the first period. Roux Bazin knotted the score at 2-2 in the second period. On a third period powerplay, Grady Hoffman scored to lift Steinbach to the win.
Reid made 28 saves on 31 shots. For Steinbach, Cole Plowman had 27 saves.
Oil Caps 5, Freeze 1
On Feb. 21, five different Oil Caps lit the lamp in a 5-1 road victory. Trevor Hunt, Joey Bielik, Nolan Chastko, Josh Lehto, and Noel Englot all scored. Lehto’s marker came on the powerplay.
Bielik scored on a penalty shot. It was his fourth straight game with a goal. What has allowed him to score?
“We’ve been playing really well as a team and we’ve had a good stretch where we are able to score a lot of goals as a team, and sometimes scoring can just come in waves,” Bielik said the day after the game. “Definitely being able to get a few lucky bounces around the net can help, but our whole team has been playing the right way allowing for everyone to get a lot of extra opportunities and second chances.”
The Oil Caps fired 47 shots at Freeze netminder Nicolas Rempel, who turned away 42 of them. For Virden, Liam Bechthold stopped all but one of the 25 shots he faced.
Matthew O’Sullivan had the Freeze’s goal. Virden product Davis Thompson was in the lineup for Winnipeg.
