The Delta Sturgeon, making their first playoff appearance since 2020, won the Atkinson Cup tonight with a commanding 6-2 win over the visiting El Dorado Lynx in game 7.
It was a much closer affair than the score would suggest. Delta’s Alex Turcotte opened the scoring at 2:03 after winning a faceoff and moments later finding the puck on his stick in the slot, but Alex Ovechkin capitalized on an early Aliaksei Protas holding penalty to tie the game 3:29 later. Both Sergei Bobrovksi and Jake Oettinger had to make good saves on odd-man rushes early in the game as well.
JJ Peterka regained the lead for Delta at 14:47 when he tipped in an Aaron Ekblad slapper, and just 24 seconds later, Nathan MacKinnon tapped in a Jake Sanderson feed in the slot to make it 3-1 in front of the roaring home crowd.
Connor McMichael buried a rebound early in the second to give the Sturgeon a three-goal lead, and that’s how the score would stay until just 26 seconds into the third, after Oettinger stopped a Mikael Granlund breakaway but the Sturgeon couldn’t get the puck back and Ovechkin slipped one through the pads to make the score 4-2.
The Lynx turned up the heat after that, although they struggled to capitalize and leading scorer William Nylander was clearly hurt after a first-period hit from Roman Josi. An Adrian Kempe tripping penalty and the ensuing Protas powerplay goal would be the final stake in the coffin. Niko Mikkola scored with 4:25 left to make it 6-2 and that was all she wrote. Bobrovsky took a delay-of-game penalty with just over a minute left and that ended any hope of a Lynx comeback. The Sturgeon held on, and are your 2026 Atkinson Cup Champions!
Nikita Kucherov finished with the postseason lead in points, with 9 goals and 23 assists in 20 games for Delta.
Gump Worsley Memorial Hockey League 