By Terry Martin
The Saints played their last home game of November tonight against the Bonnyville Pontiacs as they looked to build off their recent 3-2 win against the Calgary Canucks. The Saints are 2-1-0 against the Pontiacs so far this season, the last time they played each other was back in October where the Pontiacs just won 4-3. Bonnyville is on a 5-game win streak and they sit third in the North with 43 points.
The Pontiacs would strike first in the first 2 minutes of the game as Nick Traggio would crash the net and burry the rebound. Alex Power would then score again for the Pontiacs, this time on one of their power play opportunities. Both teams would not fire many pucks on net as the Saints would lead 7-6 after just 20 minutes and the Pontiacs would lead 2-0 on the scoreboard.
Luigi Benincasa would be the first one to score in the period for the Saints with just under 4 minutes to go in the period. Benincasa would deke around every Pontiac player to score his 18th goal of the season. Both teams would continue their tight checking game as the Saints would fire 8 shots in the period and the Pontiacs would only get 4.
Caiden Gault would also score for the Saints first in this period. Gault this tied the game on a power play opportunity with a great one-time shot. Nikola Jovanovic would then score from the slot after a scramble in front of the net to give the Saints their first lead of the game. Kash Rasmussen would then find himself in the high slot where he would score to tie the game 3-3. The Saints would come very close but both teams would eventually push the game to overtime.
Alex Power would then score just 14 seconds into the overtime period to hand the Saints their first loss at the Grant Fuhr Arena this season. The Saints, however, would end up outshooting the Pontiacs 27-19.
The Saints are now on the road for 5 games before they return to the GFA. The Saints will faceoff against the Fort McMurray Oil Barons on Friday for their 1st game on the road trip as they will both fight for first place in the AJHL North Division.