Make that 10 out of 12.
The Grande Prairie Storm defeated the Calgary Canucks 4-2 on Saturday afternoon at the Alberta Junior Hockey League Showcase weekend in Spruce Grove and now have a 10-12 record at the annual event.
It was another workmanlike effort for the Storm – not unlike their 7-1 victory over the Canmore Eagles at Showcase on Friday.
“That has been one of our biggest focuses – to see everyone who dresses contribute,” said Storm coach/GM Blaine Bablitz.
It was, he says, a team effort and a win and that meant after the game lots of visits from many of the dozens of scouts at the game.
“They are looking for guys who want to play a team game,” said Bablitz of the NCAA, NHL, CIS and other college and pro scouts at the weekend event. “Success as a team leads to success as an individual.”
After taking a first period 3-1 lead the Storm played the Canucks to a stalemate middle stanza.
Highlight of the third was rookie Jade McCullen’s first AJHL goal. That came at 3:91 and gave the Storm a 4-1 lead.
Calgary got that one back at 16:15 when Kirby Ruzesky scored making it 4-2 and creating a little excitement to end the game with the Calgary netminder pulled in the final couple of minutes.
The win gets the Storm over .500 for the first time this season. They have four wins, three losses and an overtime loss.
The only downer of the day was the fact Storm forward Gus Correale, one of the most watched players by scouts at Showcase, didn’t get on the scoresheet ending his streak at seven games with at least one point.
Saturday was Correale’s 19th birthday.
The game turned in the Storm favour in the first period during Marc Drapeau show.
The Quebec product scored twice.
He got the team on the board at 5:36 of the opening frame scoring his third of the season and then made it 3-1 at 18:57.
Newly acquired forward Mike Forsyth, with his second in as many games, scored on an individual effort at 9:43 to make it 2-1.
In the second the Storm dominated territory wise and also on the shot clock outshooting the Canucks 14-5 and had many great chances but couldn’t find the range.
Over the three periods the Storm fired 29 pucks at Calgary goaltender Andrew Guglielmin while Curtis Skip in the Grande Prairie net faced 24.
Next action for the Storm is next weekend when they host the Drumheller Dragons on Friday and the Okotoks Oilers on Saturday in the Canada Games Arena. Both games are at 7:30 p.m.