CANMORE - The Canmore Eagles are one loss away from elimination after losing 2-1 in double overtime in Game 4 against the Drumheller Dragons on Wednesday (March 15) in Canmore.
Eagles goalie Andreai Proctor-Ramirez made 36 saves and forward Logan Ziegler scored the team's lone goal as the local Junior A club went down in a 3-1 hole in the best-of-seven playoff series.
In the game's final play and just 10 seconds into the second OT, Drumheller's Coy Pighin sprinted out on a breakaway, missed his first shot, but buried his own rebound.
"That one stings," said Eagles head coach Andrew Milne. "Obviously to lose it and just to make a simple brain fart at the end to lose it, that sucks, and I feel sorry for the guys. They worked hard and they played four periods of real good hockey.
"We hit the crossbar there in overtime and it could have gone our way and it didn't and I feel like if you look at the last few games, two one-goal games, I mean, we're close. We just need that little bit of bounce and they got that break tonight and we didn't."
The series returns to Drumheller for Game 5 Friday (March 17). Puck drop is 7 p.m.
It is do-or-die for the Eagles.
"For us, it's just getting over the mental hill of now we're going to have to turn this in seven [games]," said Milne. "We felt going into this series it was going to be a long one. We knew that, we weren't shocked by that and ... we'll play desperate hockey on Friday."
So far in the series, the clashing Junior A hockey clubs split games one and two in Drumheller with the Eagles winning 4-3 on Friday (March 10) and the Dragons taking Saturday’s (March 11) match-up, 5-1.
The Dragons fought back from a two-goal deficit in Game 3 to defeat the Eagles 3-2 on Tuesday (March 14) in Canmore.
If necessary, Game 6 is Sunday (March 19) in Canmore at 6 p.m., and Game 7 is Tuesday (March 21) in Drumheller at 7 p.m.
