Photo: Hockey Canada Images
OAKVILLE, ON – The Centennial Cup quarterfinals are set. When the puck drops on Friday night, the Winkler Flyers will take on the Alberta Junior Hockey League (AJHL) champion, Calgary Canucks.
The Canucks finished their preliminary round with a win over Longueuil and Sudbury, a shootout win against Navan and a loss to Collingwood. 20-year-old Julien Gervais led the way offensively for the Canucks, finishing 2nd in overall scoring with 3 goals and 7 assists.
The Flyers kicked off their preliminary round schedule with a 4-2 win over the SIJHL champion, Sioux Lookout Bombers, where Dalton Andrew scored all four goals.
Next up was a match up with the Flyers prairie rival, SJHL champion, Melfort Mustangs. After Winkler took a 3-1 lead in the 2nd, Melfort answered with four straight goals to take a 5-3 lead in the 3rd.
Dalton Andrew would score before Zach Nicolas tied the game with 22 seconds left to force overtime. After the extra period solved nothing, the Mustangs would win in the shootout, dropping the Flyers record to 1-0-0-1.
The Flyers would square off against the host, Oakville Blades in their third game of preliminary play where they would go on to blank the Blades, 4-0 where Malachi Klassen earned a 24 save shutout.
This victory over Oakville would solidify the Flyers spot in the quarterfinals.
In the Flyers final game of the prelims, they would trade goals with the MHL champion, Miramichi Timberwolves, and head into overtime tied at 2-2. After an overtime powerplay, the Flyers were unable to solve Timberwolves goaltender and would fall in the shootout. Winkler outshot Miramichi, 42-24 in the loss.
University of North Dakota commit, Dalton Andrew, finishes the event third in points among all skaters (9) and tied first in goals (6).
The Flyers will take on the Canucks in the 6:30 PM CST time slot and you can watch live online here.
