Goertzen, Oil Caps down Pistons in six

For anyone needing a reminder of how dramatically fortunes can change in a year, cue the Virden Oil Capitals.

The Oil Capitals came within one win of a Manitoba Junior Hockey League playoff berth last season, finishing two points behind the fourth-place Waywayseecappo Wolverines in the West Division with a 24-31-3 record. Now this year, a 15-win improvement has pushed them to a 39-14-5 mark — and just four wins from their ultimate goal.

Virden is headed back to the Turnbull Cup championship after defeating the Steinbach Pistons 4-3 in Game 6 of its best-of-seven semifinal tilt at Tundra Oil & Gas Place on Sunday evening.

Liam Goertzen tallied two goals, including the game winner 15 minutes 12 seconds into the final frame. Tyson Draper and Nathan Schaefer also hit the back of the net for their third goals of the post-season, while goaltender Braxton Burdeny made 22 saves to bring the Oil Caps to their first final appearance since 2023, when they fell to the Pistons in five games. Brett Kaiser, Jackson Kostiuk, and Grady Hoffman got on the board for Steinbach, while Easton Thvedt turned aside 24 shots in the loss.

“It was a grind and a lot of hard work, but lucky enough we came out on top,” said Goertzen, who was named the first star of the game. “It was a big one coming back to having a home game here after a tough loss in Steinbach the other night, so it was nice to be able to come back into our own barn and play a game and it was electric there. We had a really good crowd support, so it was a fun game to be a part of and just glad we could come out on top.”

After sweeping the first two games on the road and then splitting a two-game set at home, Virden had an opportunity to close out its opponents at the Southeast Event Centre in Steinbach in Game 5 and with a 2-0 lead halfway through the middle frame, it certainly looked that way until they gave up four unanswered goals, including three in the third period, to lose 4-2.

Goertzen, who was traded from the Winnipeg Freeze to the Oil Caps at last year’s deadline in return for defenceman Jonah Vanderhorst and forward Parker Rolston, knew he and his squad wouldn’t be champing at the bit to roll the dice on a Game 7 on the road, so they did everything in their power to take care of business back at home.

They controlled the tempo for long stretches of the game and harnessed the noise from their fans to stay ahead the entire way, holding 1-0, 2-1, 4-2 and 4-3 leads, before eventually running out the clock to end a dogfight of a series.

“They’re a really good team,” said Goertzen. “It took a lot for our team to be able to fight them off and it was huge getting the first two there to be up in the series and then kind of let one slip in Game 3, but just staying ahead of ourselves and staying positive.

“It was a disappointing loss there (in Game 6), but we were still in the driver’s seat being up in the series, so we just needed to make sure coming back home that we needed to get it done because we know how tough it is playing in a rink like that. We just had to keep our minds right and take the game as we could and it was a good one.”

Especially for Goertzen, who’s now up to six goals and 13 points in 10 games this playoffs after posting 17 goals and 39 points in 54 games in the regular season. He made a spectacular individual effort while shorthanded to put his club back on top 2-1, while his second was the cherry on top of a beautiful tic-tac-toe passing play between his linemates Carson Wright and Draper to make it 4-2 for the hosts.

Goertzen’s first goal showcased a lot of his raw offensive talents like his creativity, vision and speed, but he believes he was just capitalizing on the open space he was given.

“I think it was Brooks (Siemens) who got the puck down and I just kind of saw that I could beat the defender there to the puck to try to kill some more time and I kind of separated the puck from the body and came out of the zone and then saw I had a couple defenders kind of just laying back a little bit, so I tried to take it around them and then I just took it around and got a quick shot off and luckily enough, I found the net,” the 19-year-old Homewood product said.

He came up big in what was certainly the biggest game of his career, but he doesn’t plan on stopping there. He knows there are plenty more of those to go around come the final.

“These are important games, so everyone’s always up and ready to go,” Goertzen said. “Games like these you just want it so bad that you want to do as much as you can to help get the team to where we need to go and I think it’s just sticking with it and also building a lot of chemistry with guys on my line and on our team.

“When I came here last year, we were trying to make a little push there to get in the playoffs and we ended up not making it by a couple points, so it was pretty disappointing coming into this year. We had a lot of talk with a lot of the returning guys that we didn’t want it to end the same way it did last year and we just kind of kept working at it and lucky enough, now we’re going in the finals here, so we’re ready to keep it going.”

The only team standing in their way is a very familiar one in the Niverville Nighthawks — at least for Goertzen.

The five-foot-11, 170-pound left-winger was drafted by Niverville 47th overall in 2022. He played one game for them three seasons ago, but nothing ever came to fruition after that.

It brings upon a full-circle moment and one he hopes will end in his favour, but only time will tell.

“Obviously I didn’t get to stick around there, so it’ll be good fuel to try to use,” he said.

“They’re no joke. They got a very good team, so it’s gonna take a lot and it’s gonna need to be probably some pretty low scoring games to try to grind out as many wins as we can and just play the underdog story a little bit.”

Check out Wednesday’s edition for an Oil Capitals/Nighthawks championship preview.

» mdelucataronno@brandonsun.com