SHERWOOD PARK, AB (March 29, 2024) — Sam Huck (Calgary, AB) tallied a goal and an assist but the Okotoks Oilers were defeated by an 8-4 score in Sherwood Park on Friday evening.
Huck moved within four points of the all-time Oilers franchise scoring record with his output against the Crusaders on Friday. The 2004-born forward now has 36 goals and 78 points in 59 games this season, good for a total of 161 points in 163 games over his three-year Oilers career.
The Oilers’ current all-time scoring leader is Kyle Reynolds, who racked up 79 goals and 165 points in 158 games over parts of four seasons with the team in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Huck has three games left this season to tie or surpass Reynolds’ career point total.
Jagger Tapper (Calgary, AB), Dean Spak (Calgary, AB), and Brett Huxley (Calgary, AB) also found the back of the net on Friday, with the latter bringing the Oilers within one goal of the Crusaders just past the five-minute mark of the third period. It was also Huxley’s first goal in the BCHL.
The Oilers turned on the jets early in the third period after being smothered by their opponents for most of the first 40 minutes. Sherwood Park bookended the first period with a pair of goals from Ryan Zaremba and Dominic Payne before Zaremba and Noah Wills added two more in the second.
Tapper got the Oilers on the board midway through the second, but it didn’t make much of a dent against an opportunistic Sherwood Park team that scored four times on 16 shots in the first two periods. Conversely, the Oilers managed just one goal on 21 shots over the same timeframe.
Christian Green (Boothwyn, PA) replaced Mikael Kingo (Burlington, ON) in the Oilers’ net after the first three Sherwood Park goals. Green did his part for most of the third period as the Oilers attempted to mount a comeback, stopping 10 of the 12 shots he faced in the final frame.
Huck, Spak, and Huxley scored in the first 5:05 of the third, with Zaremba also completing his hat trick for the Crusaders in the middle of that run, to make it a 5-4 game in favour of the hosts. But Connor Gengle took away the Oilers’ momentum with a goal just 28 seconds after Huxley’s marker, and the Crusaders ended up tacking on two empty-netters to take the game by an 8-4 score.
The Oilers remain in fourth place in the BCHL Alberta Division with three games remaining in the regular season. They’re one point back of the Blackfalds Bulldogs for third place but will need to finish two points ahead of Blackfalds to secure a bye past the play-in round against the fifth-seeded Spruce Grove Saints, as Oilers assistant general manager Tyler King explained here.
This weekend’s slate of games is far from over. The Oilers will return to action on Sunday at 5:30 p.m. MT to take on the Brooks Bandits at Okotoks Centennial Arena.
Recap: Mike Gould
Photo: Chad Goddard
