Bisons end road trip with split

Justin SewarD
Times Reporter

 

Despite a 7-3 loss against the Edmonton-based SSAC Athletics, the CFR Bisons coaching staff have seen a lot of positives in the teams play and are hopeful it will lead to more success in the future.
“I really like how our team has been playing the last little while,” said Bisons assistant coach Dave Attwood. “We had a good weekend, that Showcase weekend, and we continued to play good hockey into Fort Saskatchewan (on Nov. 14). We ran into a team that was pretty rough and tumble and it was a real battle. We’re pretty happy to see the boys work their way through that and find a way to win that game by playing some good hockey.”
Attwood added that the Bisons dominated the Rangers in zonetime, which led to quality scoring chances in the offensive end, and got strong goaltending when they were in the defensive zone.
“It was nice to see … our scoring spread around to a couple of lines,” said Attwood. “We’ve been fortunate to have our Haden line scoring a lot of goals for us. But this weekend we were able to get others chipping in. That’s a sign of our whole team game getting stronger.”
Tyson Scott, Kyle Gordon and Liam Izyk scored in the win.
Attwood thought, despite the loss to SSAC, it did not hurt the boys to feel adversity and learn from it.
“It didn’t take much of a breakdown for them to capitalize on their opportunities,” he said. “I don’t think the boys got frustrated by it, they don’t like losing, they found themselves in a place that they didn’t like a whole lot.
“They responded, they made some changes and responded in a positive way and I think that’s going to bode well for us also in the future when we get ourselves in a bit of a pickle, they’ll take this experience and be better for it.”
Zach Vinnell, Tanner Foster and Zach Cox scored in the loss.
The Bisons will return home to face the St. Albert Raiders on Nov. 21 at 5:15 p.m., while SSAC will be in town the following day with puck drop going at 2 p.m.