Saturday, September 12, 2009

Game 2 - vs Penticton Vees

Third Period Summary - The third sure started with a bang ... at the 39 second mark following a hard forecheck by Sam Muchalla that the referee didn't think warranted a penalty. The Vees obviously disagreed and the first person to let Sam know was Luke Curadi, a big player listed as 6' 5" and 255 pounds - that's a full one hundred pounds more than the Spruce Kings captain. In the scrum, Curadi ended up on top of Muchalla and that was enough for Justin Fillion who came in to try and break up the log jam and then it was on. Curadi went with Fillion, Josh Pineiro with Alex Szczechura, Jeff Earnest with Ben Sexton and then as Sam Muchalla was able to get out of the crowd he was met by Garrett Milan and they had a good exchange. The only pairing that kept it from becoming a true line brawl was Brooks Robinson and Malt Paltridge and of course the goaltenders.

The whole mess took over twenty minutes to clean up and resulted in a combined nine fights (Curadi was charged with two) and ten game misconducts including a pair to Curadi and Fillion. Mixed in there as well was an instigating minor to Curadi which ultimately gave the Spruce Kings a seven minute powerplay to work with. Without the likes of Muchalla, Fillion, Earnest and Pineiro available for the ensuing man advantage, the Spruce Kings came up empty. In fact it was worse than that as a defensive zone faceoff went horribly wrong and resulted in a short handed goal against.

That was the last time the Vees would score on the night, but of course nine goals was more than enough to claim the two points on the night. On the bright side of all of this, the time in goal for Tim Zwiers helped to calm the youngster who now officially has one BCHL game on his stat sheet. Although it might be one he would rather forget after giving up three goals on thirteen shots in just under 35 minutes in goal.

I wonder what this does for that rivalry I hinted at before the game, it very well might have gone from a defrost to at least a simmer if not more. Time will tell and these two teams will have some time to think about what transpired before they meet again in November. These two will see each other again on Saturday November 28 in the South Okanagan Events Centre at the tail end of a three game road trip with stops in Vernon and Trail beforehand.

Following the game, league commissioner John Grisdale, who was in attendance at the game, took away the game DVD presumably to review it for possible suspensions before Penticton's afternoon affair with the Millionaires in Quesnel. It may actually be the Millionaires that benefit the most from this event as they are the next opponent for both teams. The Spruce Kings will be in the Gold Pan city on Wednesday for their first road game of the season and a chance to find the win column against former Spruce Kings coach, Glen Watson.

Second Period Summary - It looked like it was going to start better for the Spruce Kings with Evan Smith seeing the puck and making some key stops then a penalty crept into the picture putting the Vees back on the man advantage. In the first period they had scored three of their goals on the powerplay and all of them less than 30 seconds into the man advantage. This time the Spruce Kings were able to hold them off for almost a minute, but that was all as the Vees made it a 7-2 contest. Then another power play and another power play goal put the visitors up 8-2 and Evan Smith onto the bench for the second time in the game.

Tim Zwiers came into the game for the second time, but this time looks a little less nervous and has stopped the puck all three times he has been called on to do late in the second. The defence is also starting to work harder at getting the puck out of their own zone and out of the danger areas. Now the offence needs to start clicking again.

First Period Summary - The gloves came off early to start the game with Colten Derickson and Logan Johnston only wait long enough for the puck to hit the ice before they engaged in an extended back and forth tilt. That sparked the Spruce Kings as they opened the scoring on a nice play setup by Sam Muchalla from behind the net out to Brooks Robinson. Immediately following that faceoff another fight ensued with Luke Hannas and Luke Curadi trading a few in a quick tilt.

From there it was all Penticton as they scored three times on five shots chasing Evan Smith to the bench and bringing out Tim Zwiers to try his luck. Unfortunately the welcome to the BCHL wasn't any better for the Williams Lake product who was scored on twice on three tries. The second goal scored on Tim was while the Spruce Kings were short two players. Prince George did get a two man advantage for themselves that they were able to convert on. Robinson's second of the game still wasn't enough to stem the tide as the Vees added one more before the end of the first and have a 6-2 lead to start the second.

Rosters

Penticton Vees

1 Bonar, Sean G 91
4 Jones, Mitch D 91
6 Johnson, Derik D 90
7 Sorensen, Byron D 91
8 Dolan, Bo D 90
9 Viselli, Ryan F 89
10 Filiou, Eric F 89
11 Manderson, Denver F 89
14 Szczechura, Alex F 90
15 Nicholishen, Stefan F 93
17 Laleggia, Joey D 92
19 Holka, Joey F 90
21 Johnston, Logan F 91
22 Milan, Garrett F 91
23 Sexton, Ben F 91
27 Lirette, JC F 89
33 Rumpel, Joel G 91
43 Curadi, Luke D 91
44 Paltridge, Matt D 89
78 Bennett, Beau F 91

Prince George Spruce Kings

1 Zwiers, Tim G 92
2 Genovese, Matt (AP) D 91
3 McLeod, Wes D 90
4 McEwan, Clayton D 91
5 Fillion, Justin D 90
8 Gibson, Jonathan D 90
9 DeSousa, Nick F 90
10 Pickering, Andrew F 89
11 Manlow, Kyle F 91
15 Hannas, Luke F 91
16 Earnest, Jeff F 91
17 Robinson, Brooks F 89
18 Derickson, Colten F 89
19 Morgan, Joe F 89
20 Datoff, Jeff D 92
21 Lambert, Stewart F 90
23 Berra, RJay F 90
24 Pineiro, Josh D 89
26 Muchalla, Sam F 90
35 Smith, Evan G 89

Officials

Ref - Justin Neufeld
Line - Eric Martens
Line - Wyatt Burt

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