Offence from the defence doesn’t have to come at a cost.
The Okotoks Carstar Bisons are threading the needle of offensive contributions from the back end while owning the best goals against numbers in the Heritage Junior Hockey League en route to a season long 10-game winning streak.
“We’ve always got the green light to get into the play,” said Bisons defenceman Caden Scott. “We’ve got eight really good defencemen who all can skate and move the puck and we get to use that and help our forwards out.
“We’ve got a great group and all just work well together.”
Alternate captain Brayden Kapty and Scott are the league’s points leaders among defencemen with all eight regulars on the back-end already on the scoresheet in 2022-23.
“We do have a lot of mobile defencemen that can make plays,” said Bisons captain Lucas Watkins, a 2002-born blueliner. “Any time we can help out offensively is definitely key to help the forwards out on the scoring end.”
Importantly, the offensive contributions are not of the rob Peter to pay Paul variety.
Okotoks owns the best goal differential in the league and is tied for the lowest goals against at 18 through 10 games.
“As a defenceman, you always have to worry about your own end first,” Scott said. “We value that and use our speed and our skill to play defence and then once we get our chance, we’ll pop on the rush and do what we can to contribute offensively.”
Okotoks is the last undefeated team standing after the Mountainview Colts dropped a pair of contests over the weekend.
As impressive as Okotoks’ start has been, the team is only halfway to its ridiculous run in the 2019-20 campaign which saw the herd rumble to 20 victories out of the gates en route to a historically successful regular season.
“Keeping our speed and moving our legs is our biggest factor,” said Watkins. “Just using that speed against other teams and getting in behind their D.
“Everyone on the team has the same standard of how we want to play every night and with hosting provincials that standard is even higher this year because we want to win it all.”
Okotoks didn’t have its fastball on Oct. 14, but managed a comfortable 5-2 triumph over the Strathmore Wheatland Kings.
Hayden Schmidt scored his first two goals of the season, Braedon Legrandeur added his first of the campaign with Scott Brown and Kapty also finding the back of the net.
In goal, Layton Draper stopped 27 of 29 shots for his second win in as many starts.
On Oct. 15, Jaevon Buschlen scored twice and added two assists to lead the herd past the Medicine Hat Cubs 5-1 on the road.
Easton Dean, Adam Kirkpatrick and Kaleb Schuller also scored with Dylan Fries backstopping the effort with a 40-save performance.
“I just think we’ve got a real tight group and we’re bringing everything together right now and we work hard,” Scott said. “We’re staying focused. When we come to the rink, it’s fun but game time comes and we’re prepared and ready to go.”
“We’ve got great fans and when we play at home we want to put on a good show and then go out and get those tough road points as well. Expectations are good for us and we rise to the occasion.”
Next week, Okotoks is in High River for round two of the Battle of the Foothills against a strong Flyers team on Oct. 21, an 8 p.m. start at the Bob Snodgrass Recplex.
The Bisons are next at home on Oct. 28 versus the Cochrane Generals.
For more information, go to okotoksbisons.com.
