Two third-period power-play goals gave Kamloops Blazers a 4-3 win over Vancouver Giants on Saturday.
Giants and Blazers were deadlocked 1-1 entering the third period, before Kamloops took their first lead early in the final frame. They extended their 2-1 advantage to 4-1 with two power play markers in a 66-second span after a four-minute power play was called against the Giants. Vancouver scored two of their own 1:39 apart to cut the deficit to 4-3, but that was as close as they’d come.
Misha Volotovskii, Ryan Lin and Sam Charko provided the goals for Vancouver.
Ty Coupland, Ty Bonkowski, Vit Zahejsky and Josh Evaschesen had the tallies for Kamloops.
“I thought we had a pretty good game,” was the assesment of Giants Assistant Coach Gaelan Patterson.
“I thought the guys battled pretty hard. You get out of the first period there and it’s a tight game and then they get up one and then going into the third, our PK, it was a tough one to take. Obviously you take a four-minute penalty high sticking in the o-zone and not to mention Volotovskii is one of our best penalty killers, so that was tough. A couple miscues on that…seeing the guys battle back and get two goals, one off a face-off and one just a good tip in front, it was good to see. I think there was belief that we were going to come back and win the hockey game.”
Vancouver falls to 21-35-1-2 (45 points), while Kamloops improves to 26-21-7-5 (64 points), currently in sixth place in the Western Conference.
The Giants opened the scoring on the power play at the 6:11 mark of the first period, courtesy of Volotovskii’s 16th goal of the season.
Coupland tied it less than two minutes later on a 1-on-1 rush.
The second period was about goaltending, with Hood and Logan Edmonstone combining for 37 saves. Hood stopped 22 of 22 and Edmonstone made 15 saves on 15 shots in the middle frame alone, holding the score at 1-1 heading into the third.
Just 3:28 into the third, Bonkowski gave Kamloops a 2-1 lead when he beat Hood from the left circle off the rush.
Vancouver was whistled for a double minor high sticking penalty not long after, and surrendered back-to-back power play goals from Zahejsky and Evaschesen to give the Blazers a 4-1 lead.
The Giants responded with a goal from Lin just 2:07 later off an offensive zone face-off, bringing Vancouver back within two.
Only 1:39 after Lin’s goal, the Giants scored off another face-off set play, this time when Charko deflected in a point shot from Ethan Mittelsteadt to make it 4-3.
Although the Giants pulled the goalie, they couldn’t get enough sustained pressure to really make a push, leading to the 4-3 final score.
Giants play four games next week, starting on Tuesday in Kennewick, Washington.