The Swift Current Broncos earned a 6-3 win over the Edmonton Oil Kings on Friday night in Edmonton.
The win was the first of this Alberta swing for the Broncos who improve to 16-13-1-2 on the season.
The game was tied halfway through the first period as the Broncos opened the scoring with Tyson Laventure and the Oil Kings responded with Marshall Finnie. However, after that, the Broncos took over, with four unanswered goals between the second half of the first and the midway point of the second period. Brady Birnie, Maddix McCagherty, Josh Filmon, and Zach Turner all got on the board. Turners, his first in the WHL, was a strange one as it was a dump in attempt that went off the end boards and couldn’t be handled by Oil Kings netminder Beckett Lankow who let it slip by his skate to make it 5-1.
In the third period, a pair of powerplay goals got the Oil Kings back to striking distance as Marc Lajoie and Ty Nash scored for Edmonton. The Broncos locked things down from there as goalie Joey Rocha stood tall stopping 27 of 30.
Filmon’s second of the night gave the Broncos some insurance in the third.
Broncos Interim Head Coach Taras McEwen said he liked how his team played five-on-five, especially when creating offense.
“I liked our transition game, I thought in the neutral zone we were able to quickly transition puck, get above them,” McEwen said. “And create a lot of odd man rushes, especially early.”
It was also another game where the Broncos gave up just one goal at even strength, going 2-for-4 on the penalty kill in the game.
“It’s definitely an area we need to improve on and something that we’ll watch some video, and do some work and try to improve,” McEwen said.
The Broncos will finish off their pre-Christmas schedule on Sunday in Calgary against the Hitmen. The game can be heard live on Country 94.1 FM with Redhead Equipment Case IH Broncos Hockey starting at 2:45pm.