Moose Jaw’s Caelan Fitzpatrick will miss out on a medal at the World Junior A Hockey Challenge, but he couldn’t have come any closer to bringing home hardware and still fallen short.
Fitzpatrick took the ice with Canada West at the tournament and saw his crew fall 3-2 in a shootout to Sweden in the bronze medal game on Sunday afternoon in Cornwall, Ont.
The five-team event featured the top Junior A players from western and eastern Canada taking on teams from the U.S., Sweden and Latvia over the last week.
Fitzpatrick, 19, suited up for the Estevan Bruins during their run to the SJHL title last season, scoring 28 goals and 48 points in the process. The former Prairie Hockey Academy and Winmar Warriors standout was traded to the Centennial Cup champion Brooks Bandits in the off-season and has 12 goals and 30 points in 31 games for the AJHL-leading crew so far this campaign.
Fitzpatrick wasted little time getting going on Sunday, scoring the game’s opening goal only 17 seconds into the proceedings. AJHL Okotok’s Sam Huck drew the lone assist on the marker, which was Fitzpatrick’s fourth of the tournament.
Sweden’s Lucas Sagranden tied things up six minutes later, though, and Felix Sorum gave their team the lead midway through the second.
An early power-play goal in the third period tied things up, with Fitzpatrick’s Brooks teammate Aiden Fink getting the job done at the 4:32 mark.
The rest of the game and overtime solved nothing, sending the proceedings to the shootout.
There, Noah Erilden stopped all five Canadian shooters and Sorum scored the lone goal on Canada West’s Andrew Ness, giving Sweden their 3-2 win.
Canada East plays the United States for the gold medal later Sunday.
