Colony goaltender saves Knights

WASILLA — The Palmer Moose skated into Saturday night’s regular season finale against rival Colony with their eye on capping their perfect conference record.

Colony netminder Forrest Savel had other ideas.

Savel stopped 51 of Palmer’s 53 shots to help the Knights play to a 2-2 tie with undefeated Palmer.

“He played so well,” Colony head coach Jamie Smith said after the tie. “He was the player of the game for us.”

Colony forced the first blemish of the season on Palmer’s North Star Conference mark. The Moose will head into the upcoming conference championships as the top seed with the 9-0-1 record. The 10-0-0 mark would have been nice, but Palmer head coach Brad Hanson said there are other things to focus on.

“What’s more important is to get ready for regions,” Hanson said. “We don’t get a banner for being the (regular season) league champs. That’s for next week. We’ve got to be ready for next week.”

But the tie did serve as a wake-up call for the Moose, Hanson said, proving how competitive the tourney could be. Smith said the game proves the conference’s parity.

“It’s anybody’s game as far as I’m concerned,” Smith said of the tournament. “The teams are so tight, the hottest goalie is going to win it (for a team).”

And that makes Smith feel that much better about Savel’s performance on Saturday. Savel stopped all 17 Palmer shots he faced in the first period, 18 in the second and another 11 in the third. Palmer outshot Colony 5-1 in the eight-minute overtime, but Savel saved the tie for the Knights.

Palmer was able to put 53 shots on net, but didn’t have a lot of second chances.

“We didn’t do a very good job of getting rebounds, but he made some nice saves, he played well,” Hanson said of Savel.

With Savel shutting down the Palmer offense, Colony was able to jump to a 2-0 lead with a pair of second-period goals.

With about 10 minutes to go in the second, sophomore Morgan McJimsey took a puck off the right wing boards and sent a sharp pass to Kevin Hartley, who was parked right in front of Palmer goalie Ashton Good. Hartley beat Good to give his team the 1-0 lead.

Less than three minutes later, McJimsey picked up a loose puck between the circles and sent a quick wrist shot past Good to extend Colony’s lead to a pair of goals.

Palmer sophomore Trey Garrod was able to cut Colony’s lead in half with a power-play goal later in the period. Senior Stephen Acher sent a sharp pass across the zone to Garrod, who stepped up from his spot on the blue line into the right wing circle. Garrod fired a wrister over the shoulder of a diving Savel.

Acher tied the game with 5:28 left in regulation. Junior captain Ivan Good sent a long pass up the ice, and Acher chased the puck down at the right wing circle, stopped and put a hard shot into the net.

With Savel in net, Colony was also able to kill 6 of Palmer’s 7 power-play chances, and two long 5-on-3 chances. Palmer skated two men strong for 40 seconds late in regulation.

Colony finished with 29 shots in the game. Ashton Good recorded 27 saves for the Moose.

Palmer and Wasilla (6-3-1) enter the North Star tourney with the top two seeds and first-round byes. Soldotna (4-3-3) jumped into the No. 3 seed over the weekend with back-to-back wins over Kenai and Homer. After losing to SoHi 6-2 Friday, Kenai (5-5-0) fell into the No. 4 seed. Colony (2-6-2) is seeded fifth and Homer (0-9-1) is sixth.

The tournament starts Thursday at the MTA Palmer Ice Arena. See the Tuesday edition of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman for the full schedule.

Palmer 2, Colony 2 OT

Saturday, Brett Memorial Ice Arena

First period — no scoring.

Second period — 1. Colony- Hartley (McJimsey) 9:50; 2. Colony- McJimsey (unassisted) 7:26; 3. Palmer- Garrod (Acher, I. Good) pp 5:50.

Third period — 4. Palmer- Acher (Buness, I. Good) 5:28.

Shots on goal: Palmer 17-19-12-5—53, Colony 15-6-7-1—29; Saves: Palmer- A. Good 15-4-7-1—27, Colony- Savel 17-18-11-5—51.

Hawks fall in Fairbanks

FAIRBANKS — Lathrop scored a 7-0 Mid-Alaska Conference victory over Houston Friday in Fairbanks. West Valley beat Houston 11-2 on Saturday.