The Victoria Grizzlies found that out Sunday afternoon at The Q Centre. The Grizzlies were already without injured veterans Brett Stirling and Nick Guiney, and on Sunday Victoria squared off against the Chilliwack Chiefs without the services of leading scorer Cole Pickup, who was in the U.S. on an NCAA school visit.
The end result was a sluggish Victoria offence and the Chiefs handing the Grizzlies just their second regulation time loss, this one by a 3-1 score in front of 800 fans at The Q Centre.
The lone bright spot for the Grizzlies (6-2-2-2) was that they opened the scoring when Jamie Rome converted a 2-on-1 pass from linemate Lucas Clark at 17:53 of the first period.
Penalty trouble haunted the Grizzlies in the second period as Chilliwack (7-3-1-0) scored on two of their four man-advantage opportunities in the middle period to take control of the game. Jordan Kawaguchi beat Grizzlies netminder Matthew Galajda at 6:28 and then Jake Smith gave the Chiefs the lead at 17:22.
A Chiefs goal by Kohen Olischefski just 28 seconds into the third period put the game on ice for Chilliwack, which cam into the game on a three-game unbeaten streak.
The Chiefs finished 2-5 on the power play, while the Grizzlies were 0-4.
Next up for the Grizzlies is a home-and-home set with the Cowichan Valley Capitals this weekend, beginning Friday night at The Q Centre.
