ERNIE'S MIDGET AAA IN PLAYOFFS
The Grande Peace Athletic Club Ernie's Sports Experts Storm can enjoy one of their best regular-seasons ever ... but not for long.
After wrapping up their Alberta Midget Hockey League season in third place in the Dodge Division - with 14 more points than they had last year - the Storm are back on the ice Wednesday night hosting the Edmonton SSAC Athletics in the first game of a best-of-five division quarterfinal series.
All five games, if it goes that long, have to be played in just seven nights.
The Storm are in the playoffs for the first time since 2014-15 when they bowed out to Edmonton CAC 3-2 in a first-round best-of-five.
They finished the 34-game regular season in third place in the Dodge Division with 17 wins, 13 losses and four ties for 38 points while SSAC ended up sixth at 34-13-19-2-28.
The St. Alberta Raiders (42 points) finished first and the Fort Saskatchewan Rangers second (40) and got first-round playoff byes. CAC finished fourth (37 points) and will take on the fifth place Sherwood Park KIngs (30 points) in the other best-of-five Dodge Division quarter-final.
A pair of wins on the weekend helped ESE move into third.
On Saturday they travelled to Edmonton and rolled to a 7-1 win over MLAC. Edge Lambert and Sheldon Kwiatkowski had two goals each and Mason Hartman, Clayton Brown and Austyn Hansen, who also had three assists, had singles. Cam Beson made 25 saves for the win in net.
On Sunday Hartman, Kail Magnusson and Devin Aubin had the goals and Beson made 29 saves in a 3-2 win over CAC in Clairmont.
SSAC and the Storm played twice during the regular season with GP winning both - 3-2 in Grande Prairie on November 10 and 1-0 in Edmonton on December 16.
To go along with third place standing in points, the Storm also finished third in goals for with 110 and third in goals against with 97 in the Dodge Division. Scoring goals was a bit of a struggle for SSAC as they were 10th, and last, in the division with just 76, but allowed the fourth fewest goals with 112.
In Kwiatkowski the Storm have the 15th leading scorer in the AMHL. He had 16 goals, 20 assists and 36 points while Lambert was 17th overall with 21-14-25 and Hudson Foley tied for 21st with 10-24-34.
None of the SSAC players finished in the top 30 in scoring. They were led by Mitchell Verenka (10-16-26) and Marcus McEachern (10-7-17).
If they're going to win the series the Storm will have to find a way to beat the fifth best netminder in the league.
SSAC's Ryley Osland had a goals-against average of 2.27 and a save percentage of .930 for a sixth place team. GP's McCoy Bidewell was eighth overall at 2.46 and .929, but Beson got most of the work this year with 1,333 in minutes playing a goals against average of 2.84 and save percentage of .915.
Wednesday's game goes at 5:30 p.m. in the Coca-Cola Centre. The teams play in Edmonton on Friday and then again in the Coke Can at 4:15 p.m. on Saturday. Game 4, if needed, goes in Edmonton on Sunday and Game 5, if needed, is slated for the Coke Can on Tuesday, Feb. 26 at 5:30 p.m.
