Waylon Esche and the Blackfalds Bulldogs handed the Brooks Bandits their first loss of the 2024-25 season Saturday night in Blackfalds. The Bulldogs looked like a whole different team from the night before. As well as the Bulldogs did play I don’t think there is a single person that watched that game that wouldn’t agree that Waylon Esche is the reason the Bulldogs won. The Bulldogs have always been great at getting top notch goalies the last couple seasons, but with this kid they unlocked some sort of cheat code.
Cool the Bulldogs are wearing their gold helmets. The Bandits should do something similar and where purple ones. Get it🤣
It took the Bulldogs over 10 minutes to get their first shot on goal.
Jared Langdon scores his second goal of the season for the Bulldogs on the Power Play at 11:43. Langdon knew exactly where to be and easily tapped it past the Euro goalie. Assists on the goal went to Aidan Castle and James Johnson.
Shots in the first period were 15-5 in the first period
Jared Langdon walks in on the right side on a defender who is still wondering what happened and snipes his second of the night to make it a 2-0 game for the Bulldogs at 4:48 of the second period unassisted.
Newcomer Michigan State commit A.J Lacroix who the Bandits acquired in trading Ty Mason’s rights to Chilliwack for scored for the Bandits right after at 5:05 of the second period. It went upstairs for review. But it counted. The assists on the goal went to Parker Lalonde and Ethan Beyer.
Alexander Dimitriadis restores the Bulldogs 2 goal lead at 10:50 of the second period with the assists going to Brayden Gourley and Jack McAra.
Boston University commit Aidan Souligny scored on the Power Play from the point with 2 seconds remaining in the second frame to get his first as a Bulldogs. The assists on the goal went to Joey Melo and Jayden Joly.
Shots in the second period were tied at 12 each
Liam Fitzpatrick scored just 25 seconds into the third period to cut the lead to 4-2. The assists on the goal went to Quinn McCall and Ethan Beyer.
Jack Good got his third goal of the season at 3:18 of the third period to cut the Bulldogs lead to 1. The assists on the goal went to Jack Rosensteel and Frenchmen Mathis Dufor.
Shots on goal in the third period were 19-5 for the Bandits. The Bandits outshot the Bulldogs 46-22 in the game.
Waylon Esche made 43 saves on the 46 shots that he faced for the win for the Bulldogs. For the Bandits Montreal Canadiens draft pick Latvian native Mikus Vecvangas made 18 saves on the 22 shots that he faced.
Three Stars of the game were 1) Waylon Esche 2) Jared Langdon 3) Alexander Dimitriadis
Attendance in Blackfalds was 684
Bulldogs next game is November 1st Friday in Penticton against the Vees then Saturday November 2nd in Salmon Arm against the Silverbacks. The Bulldogs return home on November 8th to face the West Kelowna Warriors.
