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Tuesday night the Edmonton Oil Kings made a statement.
One that reverberated throughout the Western Hockey League as play shut down for the holiday break.
The 4-1 win over the Calgary Hitmen not only gave the Oil Kings top spot in the Eastern Conference, but also reaffirmed the team as favourites to claim its second-consecutive WHL title.
It?s going to take something special to dethrone them.
?We?ve now won two against Calgary in Calgary,? said Oil Kings leading scorer Michael St. Croix. ?It truly is the battle of Alberta, we were battling for top spot in the conference.
?We knew coming in, we had the potential to be first in the conference going into the break. We like playing the Calgary guys because we don?t like them over there. It?s a heated battle and it was nice to get the win.?
The Oil Kings scored four special-team goals to beat the Hitmen for the second straight time in Calgary?s rink. But perhaps more importantly, they limited the Hitmen to just 16 shots on net, completely outplaying them through the final 40 minutes.
And while defending a two-goal lead in the third period, it was the Oil Kings who were the more aggressive club.
?We?re a team that always wants to be pushing, we?re not going to sit back,? St. Croix said. ?Even when we were up 3-1 we didn?t want to sit back. That?s part of the makeup of our hockey team we?re always going to keep on going.
?Coming in, knowing we could get first place in the conference was a big motivation to us. I thought we played a good 40 minutes. I don?t think the first 20 was the greatest, but we battled through, we persevered and it was good to see us get the win.?
The win gave the Oil Kings 51 points from their first 35 games, one up on the Hitmen, who had led the conference for the majority of the season.
The Oil Kings now have a week off before reconvening on Boxing Day in preparation to host the Red Deer Rebels the following evening.
?We?re happy where we?re at, but there?s still room for improvement,? said Oil Kings head coach Derek Laxdal. ?When we come back in the second half and you put (Griffin) Reinhart, (David) Musil, Martin Gernat and Travis Ewanyk back into our lineup, and if we can get that same kind of effort that we saw in these kids, I think there?s a lot of room for improvement.
?But at the end of the day, I like where we?re going and you have to give credit to the kids, they finished off hard before the Christmas break. We had some tough teams, we had to play Kamloops and Calgary twice and Victoria is a pretty good hockey club. I thought our guys played pretty well defensively and when we got an opportunity to score, we buried the puck.?
Having lost their first four encounters to the Hitmen this season, there was cause for concern, knowing the two teams seem destined to meet at some point in the playoffs.
That concerned has seemingly vanished, however, with a pair of solid outings against a Hitmen team that may lack in style, but more than make up for it in efficiency.
?Even the last time we played in here, I thought we did a pretty good job defensively against them when we got up 3-0,? Laxdal said. ?(Tuesday) we expected more of a push from Calgary, but our guys didn?t give them a lot. We got pucks in the offensive zone, we got them down low and then we cycled them. We didn?t turn pucks over and we did a good job keeping them to the top of the circle.?
Following the Christmas break, the Oil Kings will be getting Reinhart, Musil and Edgars Kulda back from the World Junior Hockey Championships. They also expect to have Gernat on the blue-line, back from shoulder surgery.
If that isn?t enough, the Oil Kings still have room to add another overage player before the Jan. 10 trade deadline.
?We?ve had a lot of pressure on us in the first half in terms of where we?re supposed to be as a hockey club,? Laxdal said. ?Going into the break, we?re in first place. You have to give our kids credit, they hung in there, they stuck with the game plan and the teaching of the coaches and now, we?re right where we?re supposed to be.?
derek.vandiest@sunmedia.ca
twitter.com/SUNdvandiest
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