After rattling off five straight victories and earning at least a point in seven consecutive outings, the Victoria Grizzlies suddenly find themselves mired in a three-game losing skid.
The Grizzlies squandered a 2-0 lead in losing 3-2 to the Trail Smoke Eaters in Thursday night sa国际传媒 Hockey League play, returning from an extended road trip to drop their first of five straight at The Q Centre.
In fact, these same two teams met Sunday with Victoria falling 2-1, despite out-shooting the Smoke Eaters 30-15. That loss snapped the stretch of points in seven games. Victoria also lost 5-1 in Nanaimo on Wednesday.
Kienan Scott out-legged defenceman Brett Stirling and slipped the puck through Grizzlies netminder Mitchel Benson鈥檚 legs at 8:31 of the third period for the game-winner on Thursday.
The loss did not sit well with Grizzlies general manager and head coach Craig Didmon.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 think we were in the game at all, from start to finish. I thought we were lucky to be up 2-0. I was glad Mitch Benson showed up,鈥� said Didmon, who wasn鈥檛 using the recent road trip as an excuse.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 care that it鈥檚 been a grind. 鈥� They decided that they were going to take a night off and for the fans, that wasn鈥檛 a good enough effort. They know it, so they better come out [today] with something better than that.鈥�
The now 9-15-0-3 Grizzlies welcome the Island Division-leading Cowichan Valley Capitals tonight at 7.
On Thursday, Cole Pickup scored his second power-play goal in two nights at 15:27 of the first period. Victoria made it 2-0 on Keyvan Mokhtari鈥檚 second short-handed goal of the season at 17:24 and the Grizzlies appeared to be on their way.
But Kale Howarth and Nick Halloran tallied 2:30 apart midway through the second period to tie it.
Minutes earlier, Pickup was robbed by a Bailey MacBurnie glove-hand save on a short-handed breakaway. He made an even bigger stab on Mokhtari鈥檚 wrister with 28.3 seconds to go.
