Oil Caps look to rebound from first loss in final

The Virden Oil Capitals’ nine-game playoff winning streak ended Saturday night in Steinbach but there’s no panic in the dressing room.

Far from it.

Virden still leads the best-of-seven Manitoba Junior Hockey League final 2-1 even with a 5-3 loss in Game 3 to the host Pistons, which saw former Humboldt Bronco Daniel McKitrick score what proved to be the game-winning goal on an early third-period power play.

"It’s good, we are going to regroup here (tonight) and get ourselves ready to go," Virden head coach and general manager Troy Leslie said. "We knew that going into this series if we were going to be successful that it wasn’t going to be a four-game sweep.

"They’ve got a good team and (tonight) we have a chance to respond at home and obviously we are up two games to one so we are still in good shape."

Puck drop for Game 4 at Tundra Oil and Gas Place will be at 7:30 p.m. as the Oil Capitals look once more to pull within one victory of the organization’s first Turnbull Cup in 24 years when it won the league as the St. Boniface Saints.

The biggest reason Virden doesn’t have a chance to capture the MJHL crown tonight — and book a spot in the Anavet Cup against the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League champions — is its special teams struggled in Game 3.

Steinbach converted two of its seven opportunities with the man advantage, while the Oil Capitals, who finished the contest having outshot the Pistons 37-29, came up empty on each of their nine chances.

"We were able to get some shots to the net but it was really a game of special teams," Leslie said. "Just looking at it, there was lots of penalties on both sides and at the end of the night they scored a couple of power-play goals and we didn’t get them to go in.

"We did a lot of good things, directed a lot of good things at the net and it’s just a matter of getting that power-play goal that we needed."

Although outstanding rookie netminder Matthew Thiessen stopped 34 Virden shots on Saturday, Leslie said his team simply failed to collect rebounds and put them in the net.

"I think just some second, third and fourth opportunities in and around the net when you do get pucks to the net on the power play are big," Leslie said. "We need to be able to get those pucks that hit the net and are sitting there for rebounds."

Tristan Culleton potted his first career MJHL playoff marker 2:23 into the opening frame off a feed from Pilot Mound product Tyson McConnell but league rookie of the year Justin Lee of Waskada responded with his first post-season tally with six minutes left.

The game remained tied for all of 20 seconds as Brandonite Bradley Schoonbaert snapped a four-game pointless stretch with his fifth goal of the playoffs.

He made it 3-1 on a Steinbach man advantage 4:41 into the second period.

Leslie knows his team has to keep an eye on Schoonbaert, who finished second in regular-season scoring (91 points) and third in goals (36), for the remainder of the series.

"We’re always aware of him out there," Leslie said. "He’s a prolific goal scorer in our league and we’ll be aware of him when he’s out there."

Virden kept fighting and goals by Graeme Hore of Wawanesa and Kirklan Lycar in the final five-plus minutes of the period brought the Oil Capitals even heading to the third.

McKitrick’s goal gave Steinbach the lead back and Drew Worrad added an insurance marker later in the frame, beating Virden goalie Riley McVeigh, who made 24 saves.

Schoonbaert picked up a secondary assist on Worrad’s marker to finish with his second three-point night this post-season.

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