Bears close out regular season with Kruger’s timely return

It was a solid regular season with a rough ending.

When the University of Alberta Golden Bears boarded an east-bound plane to Manitoba, there was one clear message — they needed to win, by a lot, and go into their bye week with a modicum of confidence and respect in their performance.

This was only partly achieved.

On the one hand, they walked away with three points, a plus-two to their goal differential, and a newly healthy tandem. On the other hand, they gave up an over time loss to the bottom seeded Manitoba Bisons on February 7 — a team they previously recorded a shutout against on a rare Thanksgiving matinee.

It was unfortunate and avoidable, but doesn’t discredit the work that this injury prone and penalty-ready team has put into the season. They won 21 out of 28 regular season games and led the conference for the majority of the year.

Their loaded rookie class, now only outdone by playoff ready veterans, have lived on the Canada West leader board, and in some cases, still do.

We’d like to say the Bears will jump into round one of the playoffs having found some normalcy in a jarring second half performance. If we look at this weekend’s turnaround, maybe we can.

First, the shots on goal decreased by one over the course of the two-game weekend, going from 44 to 43, but the Bears went from losing 2-3 to winning 7-4. Maybe the quality of shots improved, maybe Manitoba’s goaltending did not.

Second — and most promising — the Bears recorded shockingly low penalty minutes over the weekend. Shocking by their standard. Average for most teams.

Friday’s six-to-one ratio was poor, and yes they gave up the game tying goal on the power play followed by Brett Hyland’s two-minute misconduct. But Saturday’s season low, two infractions for only four minutes was one for the books.

Considering the 50+ weekends they’ve averaged, 16 almost feels like a gift.

Bears playoff ready, at least in net

So does the record low penalty minutes negate the series split?

Yes and no. It hindered any chances the Bears had of leading the conference and taking with them that extra bye heading into round one of playoffs. But it’s as close to playoff ready as they’ll get.

Enter Ethan Kruger, whose timely recovery brought home the much needed win on February 8 while clarifying whether we would have a playoff tandem.

For a while it looked like Tyler Palmer would start for each of the three game weekends, and if he got injured, that would be it. Ethan Lawczynski, while making significant improvement according to head coach Ian Herbers, has no Canada West experience and playoffs is not the time to check that box.

If Palmer shouldering his largest work load since joining the Bears—and maintaining them as a top team in the West, wasn’t enough—Kruger took his last chance to practice before it matters and got that awkward adjustment game out of the way early-ish.

Sure he let in four goals on 14 shots, compared to Palmer’s three on 23, but he hasn’t played in a month either. What matters now is that if playing three back-to-back games over three weeks becomes too much for Palmer, there’s a playoff ready solution.