Yaks clinch playoff spot in weekend win over Calgary

It may be a formality at this point, but the Bonnyville Pontiacs will be officially playing in mid-March this year, clinching a playoff spot with a 6-5 win against the Calgary Canucks on Saturday. 

The two points on the road trip keep them above the Sherwood Park Crusaders in 3rd place in the North, especially after a 5-2 loss to the Okotoks Oilers after a much longer bus ride to the game due to poor highway conditions. 

The Yaks best players responded in the Saturday contest – Matteo Giampa and Nico Beaudoin had two goals and two assists each, Jack Budd scored his league-leading 16th goal amongst blueliners, and defender Travis Baker, who returned from a seven game suspension, also tickled the twine. 

A month full of adversity – suspensions, injuries, struggles – closes at 4-6. What is next is the lightest part of the Yaks schedule. 

“We got better throughout the month,” said assistant coach Connor Cadaret. 

“Considering the way it started to where its ended, I think its been positive. Because things definitely could’ve gone more off the rails than not off the start. Every team faces adversity, we just happened to have it all at the same time. We knew it was going to be a hard month regardless. Next month hopefully, we’ll be able to have a bit of a better record.”

Bonnyville’s remaining schedule sees them playing 11 of it last 13 regular season games against bottom-5 teams in the league, as well as a pivotal road weekend in Whitecourt against the 2nd in the North Wolverines. 

Netminder Bodee Weiss, who has played the second most minutes amongst goaltenders this season, is coming off an AJHL Defensive Player of the Week nod, and is hitting his stride at the right time. 

Liam Cavan has been able to stay healthy and in the lineup and the improved play of younger Noah Heinrich, gives the Pontiacs more confidence in its blueline. 

The checking contributions of Chayce Schmidt, Mike Cataldo, and Luka Sukovic also seem to be having more regular inputs as the season rolls along. 

Overall, this position in the standings is exactly where they finished last regular season, but the main cast of characters is different. 

That queues up a weekend home and home against the Lloydminster Bobcats, which if the playoffs began today, would be the 1st round matchup. 

The Yaks are 3-0-1 against their midwest rivals this season. 

Five of the next six games for Bonnyville are at home, including Friday night. After this weekend, the Yaks play four games, two against the Drayton Valley Thunder on Tuesday, Feb. 7 and Wednesday, Feb. 8, then Olds and Calgary on Saturday, Feb. 11 and Sunday, Feb. 12, all at the RJ Lalonde. 

The Pontiacs have not missed the playoffs since the 2001-02 season.

You can listen to every game, all season at lakelandconnect.thedev.ca/pontiacs.