KAMLOOPS 3
VICTORIA 2
With apologies to Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy, the Victoria Royals and Kamloops Blazers may be performing their own version of Trading Places.
Victoria began the season 7-1 and Kamloops 0-6, thanks in large part to three Royals victories over the Blazers.
But the Royals (7-4) lost for the third consecutive time Wednesday while Kamloops (3-7) won its third game of its last four when Colin Shirley鈥檚 goal, with just 32 seconds remaining, gave the Blazers a 3-2 victory over the Royals before 3,136 fans at the Sandman Centre.
What made the late-game disappointment even sharper for Victoria was that Shirley鈥檚 winner came after the Royals had just killed off a penalty to Jared Dmytriw.
鈥淵ou should generate momentum when you kill off a late penalty,鈥� said Royals head coach Dave Lowry.
Just the opposite happened.
Lowry pointed to poor positioning in the final minute.
鈥淲e didn鈥檛 play it the right way,鈥� he said.
鈥淲e had a couple of players on the wrong side of the puck. We made a mistake at the wrong time and it cost us. We鈥檝e got to be better if we want to win games. We鈥檙e not going to accept this. We鈥檒l get back at it Friday [in Spokane against the Chiefs].鈥�
The Royals鈥� triple consecutive-loss whammy turned into a quadruple whammy Wednesday when the team was knocked out of the Canadian Hockey League top-10 poll after being ranked a franchise-high No. 5 last week.
Vladimir Bobylev, just as a power play concluded with his fifth goal of the season, and Dante Hannoun, with his fourth, scored to give Victoria a 2-1 first-period lead. Those goals book-ended a Kamloops tally by Shirley, his first of the game and fifth of the season.
Kamloops captain Matt Needham tipped in a shot by fellow 20-year-old forward Gage Quinney to tie matters 2-2 at 16:02 of the second period.
Coleman Vollrath, who entered the game with a WHL third-best goals-against average of 1.89, made 31 saves in the Victoria crease. Kamloops goaltender Connor Ingram made 27 saves.
The Royals are in the midst of a four-game road trip, part of the stretch in which they play 10 of 11 games away from Blanshard Street. It continues Friday and Saturday in Spokane against the Chiefs. The home outlier is Tuesday at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre against the Lethbridge Hurricanes. That is followed by a six-game Royal Tour through Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
ICE CHIPS: Dallas Valentine, a 19-year-old defenceman, was obtained by the Blazers from the Moose Jaw Warriors last week in exchange for 20-year-old blue-liner Marc McNulty. An incomplete description of the trade appeared in Wednesday鈥檚 edition.
