The Victoria Royals feel they have stated their case against the Kamloops Blazers this Western Hockey League season.
The Royals won their season series against the sa国际传媒 Division-leading Blazers 4-3-1 following a highly eventful 7-6 matin茅e overtime loss against Kamloops in front of a sold-out Family Day crowd of 5,524 at Sandman Centre.
鈥淜amloops, Vancouver, Kelowna and Portland get a lot of attention league-wide by the media and scouts while our guys are underrated and undervalued,鈥� said Victoria head coach Dan Price.
鈥淥ur guys play to prove people wrong.鈥�
The final regular-season game against the Blazers swung dramatically with Victoria taking 2-0 and 4-2 leads. Kamloops looked to have rallied to win it in regulation before veteran Royals forward Kaid Oliver scored short-handed with 34 seconds remaining in the third period to send it to overtime. It was Victoria鈥檚 second short-handed goal of the game.
Orrin Centazzo鈥檚 league second-leading 39th goal won it for Kamloops 49 seconds into overtime.
The injury-riven Royals were down five forwards, a defenceman and a goaltender, leaving Price to marvel at his team鈥檚 gallant stand.
鈥淚 am extremely proud 鈥� almost in admiration 鈥� of what this group battled through, including killing off two four-on-three Kamloops power plays,鈥� he said.
鈥淭here was no quitting, no matter what happened in such a wild game.鈥�
Missing for Victoria were forwards Tarun Fizer, Brayden Tracey, Keanu Derungs, Sean Gulka, Ty Yoder and blue-liner Jacob Herauf, who have 162 of the Royals鈥� 393 combined points on the season. The Royals were also without WHL January goaltender of the month Shane Farkas, who has 18 of the team鈥檚 29 victories, and was the leading candidate for club MVP before going down with injury.
Meanwhile, scoring continued coming in bunches for Victoria captain Phillip Schultz. The Danish junior international had his second consecutive two-goal game and fourth double-goal game of the season. Brandon Cutler and Oliver recorded a goal and assist each. Defencemen Mitchell Prowse and Ty Ettinger scored the other Royals goals.
Connor Zary, the 12th-ranked North American skater for the 2020 NHL draft, scored once for Kamloops. The Royals were again unable to contain Logan Stankoven, a hometown Kamloops 16-year-old, who went off against the Royals with four goals in a 5-3 victory Saturday and followed up with two more goals along with two assists on Monday. Selected fifth overall in the 2018 WHL bantam draft, Stankoven has 25 goals as a rookie and looks to be a special player who will draw plenty of attention for the 2021 NHL draft.
Adam Evanoff made 33 saves in goal for Victoria and Rayce Ramsay 26 for Kamloops.
The Blazers on Saturday became the first team in the sa国际传媒 Division to have clinched a playoff berth.
Unless there is an epic Victoria collapse, the Royals (29-20-6) are also destined to make the playoffs.
鈥淟ike that saying the Patriots had in the NFL: 鈥榃e鈥檙e still here,鈥� 鈥� said Price.
But what isn鈥檛 still there is a chance at the sa国际传媒 Division regular-season title. Kamloops moved to 35-16-4 to likely dash any Victoria hopes for the division crown. The Blazers lead the second-place Royals by 10 points with each team having 13 games remaining.
The Royals must also watch their flank. The charging third-place Vancouver Giants won their 10th consecutive game Monday with a 3-2 victory over the Seattle Thunderbirds to move within a point of Victoria with a game in hand.
At stake in that race is home-ice advantage in a potential first-round playoff match-up between the Royals and Giants.
The Royals have a short turnaround before hosting the Calgary Hitmen on Wednesday night at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
