The Bonnyville Jr. A Pontiacs jumped back into the win column on Sunday afternoon with a 5-1 victory over the lowly Fort McMurray Oil Barons.
Bonnyville came into the contest having dropped three straight games, including a 5-4 shootout loss to Whitecourt on Friday night.
The Pontiacs were in tough against the 15th place Oil Barons (3-17-4), as their top three scorers in Bobby McMann, Brinson Pasichnuk and Steenn Pasichnuk were all out of the lineup.
A slow start didn't help the shorthanded Pontiacs who found themselves in an early hole after Fort McMurray's Austin Holmes notched the games opening goal just 23 seconds in.
“Good teams respond the right way,” said Rick Swan, Pontiacs head coach and GM. “We stuck to our structure and just chipped away one shift at a time. They were a little bit fatigued and we took advantage of their third game in three days.”
The response was swift from the Pontiacs, who pushed back and outshot the Oil Barons 10-3 through the games first ten minutes.
At the 10:03 mark of the opening frame Chandler Klein popped out from behind the net and beat Eric Szudor to the left post for his fourth of the season.
Erik Donald lifted Bonnyville into the lead when his seeing-eye point shot beat Szudor over the right shoulder at 6:44 of the second period.
Less than 40 seconds later Charlie Gawlicki jumped all over a rebound a shoveled it home to put the Pontiacs up 3-1.
The back-to-back goals saw Bonnyville's powerplay improve to a 30 per cent success rate at the RJ Lalonde, third best in the league.
After Chad Hurtubise made it 4-1, the potent powerplay went back to work.
With just 58 seconds left in regulation Ryan Piche, fresh off the injury list, would notch his first goal of the year to make it 5-1.
“It took me long enough, but it was good to get the monkey off my back,” said Piche, who played his first game of the regular season on Friday in Whitecourt.
“I am getting my legs back and starting to learn the systems over again,” added Piche. “My legs feel good and I am getting pretty excited to be a regular in the lineup again.”
The Piche tally helped the Pontiacs go 3-for-5 with the man advantage as the team scored their 18, 19 and 20th powerplay goals on home ice this season.
The goals came early and often in a back-and-forth affair at the Scott Safety Centre in Whitecourt in Friday night, which the Pontiacs dropped 5-4 in a shootout.
Ryan Symington kicked off the scoring at 7:01 of the first after converting on a nice pass from Kyler Hehn.
Wolverines defenseman Brody Valette recorded a pair of goals give Whiteocurt a brief lead before Alden Dupuis evened it up with less than three minutes to go in the first.
The two teams traded a pair of goals in an intense second period.
Derek Brown slid a nice pass five-hole, while Chad Hurtubise capped off a nice passing play and sent the game into the third deadlocked 4-4.
Although the third period and overtime saw many great scoring chances, the final 25 minutes solved nothing and the game was sent to a shootout.
Whitecourt's Kevin Domingue scored the only goal of the shootout to give the Wolverines the 5-4 victory.
Bonnyville will have the week off before travelling to Sherwood Park on Friday night and hosting the Calgary Mustangs on Saturday.
The Pontiacs feel some of their injured players will be healthy enough to come back and play over the weekend.
