The atmosphere inside the Athabasca Regional Multiplex Saturday night was as gloomy as it was outside, during the Athabasca Aces’ disappointing 8-3 loss at the hands of the Edson Ice.
The Aces dropped their fourth straight and second of the weekend after being thoroughly taken care of by the Ice on home ice.
The Aces also fell to the Legal Vipers 7-5 on Friday night in Legal.
“(Saturday) we came out flat. Edson should have had the bus legs, but we had bus legs instead,” said Tony Kiselyk, head coach of the Aces.
Despite the three goals by the Aces, they looked sluggish for most of the game and weren’t able to generate many chances against the Ice’s goalie Daniel Harvard.
The Aces’ biggest nemesis this year — giveaways — was once again a big problem for 60 minutes Saturday night. Athabasca rarely won one-on-one battles and looked disorganized for most of the night, resulting in most of the play and the puck in the back of Aces’ net.
The Ice struck early in all three periods, starting in the first period with two markers before the game was five minutes old. The Aces had trouble creating any pressure on the Ice’s point men or their defense.
The teams headed to the dressing room with the Ice up 2-0. The Aces only mustered six shots on Harvard in the opening period, with most of them coming from the perimeter.
The second period started almost as exactly the same as the first. Less than five minutes into the frame, the Aces found themselves down 4-0. It was the same story as the first for the Aces, as they had trouble stringing together more than one pass and creating any type of pressure in the Ice’s zone.
Apart from the goals, the Ice hit two more posts in the period and the Aces were lucky the 4-0 margin wasn’t even bigger.
The Aces’ Sean Wrusch broke Harvard’s shutout bid with a goal off a turnover with less than 1:30 left in the frame, but the one goal didn’t create much of a spark for the Aces as they headed into the dressing room for the second intermission. In two full periods, the Aces only mustered 12 shots toward the Edson goal.
Like the first two periods, the Aces gave up another early goal to the Ice to make it 5-1 and officially put the game out of reach.
Joel Kiselyk of the Aces added two powerplay markers in the period, but it was too little, too late for the struggling team from Athabasca.
The Aces were able to generate more shots in the third period than in the first two, but the good scoring opportunities were far and few between.
With the two losses this past weekend, the Aces sit with a 2-8 record. The team’s struggles, especially in the defensive end, haven’t been a secret this year.
“When you’re struggling, you have to put in a real good solid effort in order to bring it around, and that just wasn’t totally there (Saturday),” explained Kiselyk.
Aces snake bitten
The Aces fell for the second time in less than two weeks to the Legal Vipers by almost the same margin they did in the teams’ first meeting on Nov. 12.
It was yet another game the Aces were in, but couldn’t pull out a win.
The Aces lost 7-5 Friday night in Legal. It was the Aces seventh loss of the season to date.
Friday night’s loss could have easily been a win for the Aces with the game tied 5-5 late in the game, but the Vipers capitalized on a late power play chance to go up 6-5. Legal put the game away with another goal to make it 7-5.
In many of the Aces’ games this season against some of the better teams from the NCHL, they have competed for most of the game but have been unable to put together solid 60-minute effort.
That’s been the biggest problem for the Aces all season long, said Kiselyk.
“We can’t seem to get over the hump in those games. It’s frustrating because we know we can play with them, then we make a mistake and the puck is in.”
The 2-8 hole won’t be easy to climb out by any means, but Kiselyk is optimistic his team can do so with plenty of hockey left to play this season.
“We have to regroup. It’s got to come from every player, but we’ll be okay,” he said.
The biggest issue the Aces are going to have to address is their inability to keep pucks out of their net. They are last in the league with 67 goals against league in 10 games, which puts them at over six goals against per game.
Those kinds of numbers won’t lead to winning in the future if the Aces continue to give up that many goals a game.
On the other side of the spectrum, the Aces’ offense is almost scoring five goals a game.
“When we’re scoring almost five goals a game, we should be winning more than just a few. We need to clean it up in our own end,” said Kiselyk.
The loss drops the Aces home record to 1-4 on the season. The Aces currently sit second-last with four points, only two better than the expansion Rocky Rams.
The Aces will head to Onoway this Friday night before returning home against the Slave Lake Winterhawks for their third meeting of the season Saturday night at 8:30 p.m. at the Athabasca Regional Multiplex.
