Last Friday night 17-year-old rookie Nolan Chastko scored in overtime to lift his team to a 6-5 home victory over the Dauphin Kings. The Oil Caps fell the next night, 2-1, in Dauphin.
As of Sunday, 18-year-old rookie Josh Lehto paced the Oil Caps with 13 points followed by Chatsko’s 12. The Oil Caps boasted three of the MJHL’s top 10 rookie scorers and four of the top 20 in: Lehton (first), Chastko (second), Nicholas Guberman (seventh, nine points) and Ethan Guthrie (18th, six points). Guthrie was third in scoring among rookie defencemen. Lehto was tied for the rookie lead in goals with seven. On the Oil Caps, both Lehto and Davis Chorney had seven goals. Lehto and Chastko were among those tied for third in rookie assists with six. Naton Miller (25th, five), Parker Konneke (28th, five) and Brett Sabel (34th, four) ranked among the league’s top 40 rookies in points. Goalie Owen LaRocque was tied for the lead in rookie wins with four.
“Our younger players have made significant contributions so far this season,” Virden head coach Tyson Ramsey said. “They are a hardworking group and have embraced the larger role they have been put in here to start the season. They practice hard and work to get better every day which tells us they have great character, and we look forward to watching them develop over the course of the season.”
The Oil Caps played the Winkler Flyers (9-3-1-1) on the road on Wednesday, after the Empire-Advance deadline, and host them on Saturday.
Family Skate
On Friday night, the team held its annual family skate. Many young people stuck around to skate with the Oil Capitals.
“I think it’s great that we’re able to host a night like this and be able to give back to those who support us,” Oil Caps defenceman Nolan Wallace said. “I think both us and the kids had a blast being able to skate around and share some laughs. I really enjoyed that we were able to get some time on the ice with them as they’re big supporters of us. Lots of the faces we saw were the ones who are always at the glass and giving us fist bumps during games so it was awesome to have the opportunity to talk and skate with them.”
Kings Games
Of the two contests last weekend against the Kings, Ramsey said:
“Ironically, I liked our game better in the game we lost as opposed to the up and down effort in the game we won. Obviously happy to come back and get the win on Friday but to not get any points in the game in Dauphin was tough. We just didn't get to the hard areas of the ice to score when we needed to.”
Last Friday the Kings jumped out to 3-0 first period lead. The Oil Caps outscored the visitors 3-1 in the second but trailed 4-3 at the second intermission. The teams traded goals in the third before Chorney knotted the contest at 5-5 with his seventh of the season. Chastko put in a rebound in overtime for the victory.
In addition to Chastko and Chorney, scoring for Virden were Miller, captain Brody Wilson, Colten Miller, and David Bielik. Eric Reid made 28 saves for the Oil Caps. For the Kings, Cole Sheffield stopped 34 shots. Scoring for Dauphin were Matthew Gough (two), Blake Boudreau, Deepkaran Hans, and Carter Zalischuk.
Miller, an Oil Caps assistant captain, had three points on the night and was the game’s first star. Miller and Chastko each had two points and were the second and third stars, respectively. David Bielik had three points on the night.
The local Timbits teams scrimmaged at the intermissions. David Bielik was the Gardewine Hardest Working Player. Guthrie’s cousin Jett was the Mazergroup 7th Man.
On Saturday night, the teams battled again and the Kings prevailed, 2-1. The squads were knotted at 1-1 after the first period with Andrew Blocker scoring for Virden and Myles Yearwood for Dauphin. Rylan Gibbs scored in the second period to put Dauphin up for good. LaRocque made 20 saves for the Oil Caps. Dauphin’s Marko Belak made 21 saves.
