The Fort St. John Huskies came out snarling in their first two exhibition games of the season last weekend, netting 17 goals and skating away with two wins against the St. Paul Canadiens.
The Huskies beat the Canadiens 8-0 Sept. 23 and 9-4 Sept. 24 in the two-game home series at North Peace Arena.
“We’re really trying to accomplish a few things that we’ve been working on and a lot of those things came out tonight,” said Huskies coach Todd Alexander, noting puck control was top of mind for the team.
The lopsided affair should be taken with a grain of salt, but it was about as effective a start as a team can have.
Jacob Lang skated away from the weekend with a hat trick, while Nolan Legace recorded four assists. Goalies Jonathan Bateman and Tavis Viens both looked sharp between the pipes, while new net minder Brody Greggain saw ice time as well.
The Huskies fired 114 shots on net throughout the weekend, while allowing the Canadiens to fire off just 48 of their own in two games.
Still, the team needs to focus on its forecheck and passing moving forward, Alexander said.
“We need to clean some of our passes up on the back end, there’s a few times we got in trouble because we made some bad passes but we’ll clean those up, and we definitely want to do a better job on our forecheck,” he said.
Looking ahead, the Huskies begin their regular season Sept. 30 in Sexsmith against the Vipers.
The home opener will be Oct. 6 against the Beaverlodge Blades.
sports@ahnfsj.ca
