VICTORIA 1
KAMLOOPS 0
听
It鈥檚 been said, more than once, that your goaltender needs to be your best penalty killer.
Griffen Outhouse was the perfect example of that on Friday night as the Victoria Royals鈥� sophomore stopped a total of 34 shots and benefitted from Matthew Phillips鈥� goal at 10:20 of the third period in a 1-0 win over the Kamloops Blazers.
Phillips chased down a puck chipped ahead by Ryan Peckford and beat Blazers goaltender Connor Ingram just over his left pad.
It was just the team鈥檚 third goal of the season after surrendering 3-1 and 5-1 defeats at home last weekend to the Prince George Cougars. Victoria and Kamloops are both 1-2 early in the 2016-17 Western Hockey League campaign.
This one was all about Outhouse as he frustrated the Blazers at every turn, particularly on the power play where the Blazers finished 0-for-6. Victoria was also a dismal 0-for-6 with the man advantage and is now 0-for-20 for the young season.
鈥淗e made saves when he had to, but I think their goalie was pretty darn good, too. We generated some chances and he鈥檚 one of the top goalies in the country,鈥� Royals head coach Dave Lowry said of Ingram, a third-round draft pick of the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2016. 鈥淲e generated some chances.
鈥淚 expect Griffin to be good every night, that鈥檚 not going to change,鈥� added Lowry. 鈥淭he big thing with Griff is he has to be good again [today].鈥�
The two teams meet again tonight at 7:05 PM at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre, which drew a small crowd announced at 3,980.
They were treated to some fine netminding from Outhouse throughout.
He made a save off a point-blank slapper from Matt Revel just three minutes in and added a pad save off Collin Shirley with six minutes left in the opening stanza. He then robbed Shirley on a backhand and added another of his 10 first-period stops off the rebound to Joe Gotenby.
Victoria had a good opportunity five minutes in, but Jack Walker and Ethan Price couldn鈥檛 quite connect on a pass from behind Ingram鈥檚 net five minutes in.
Outhouse continued his mastery in the second as he gloved down another Revel offering early, this time on a screened shot on a Blazers鈥� power play. He also squeezed the puck between his arm and body with just 1.1 seconds remaining off a Shirley shot on another man advantage.
He was even more spectacular in the third.
鈥淧hysically and mentally I felt good going into the game, but I鈥檓 only as successful as the team in front of me. The guys did a really good job there,鈥� said Outhouse, stone-walling the media as well as he did the Blazers.
鈥淚t was nice to get that one off the back and just make sure we keep heading in the right direction,鈥� he finally offered up of posting the goose-egg.
Victoria s now a perfect 15-for-15 on penalty kills and a lot of that fell on Outhouse this night. Last season the Royals were second best in the entire league in killing penalties at an 84.2 per cent clip.
