Just beyond the quarter-pole of the 2017-18 Western Hockey League season, the Victoria Royals continue to be the frontrunners, running like a fine thoroughbred in full gallop, although for most of Friday night they were stuck in a troublesome trot.
But the Royals managed to continue their mastery over the Edmonton Oil Kings, recording a ninth straight victory over the historic franchise from the Alberta capital by way of a come-from-behind 3-2 victory.
This time they came down the back stretch to nip the visitors at the finish line before an announced crowd of 5,717 at the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre. Victoria now heads to Vancouver tonight to face the Giants.
Tyler Soy鈥檚 power-play goal at 10:41 of the third period capped the comeback from a 2-0 deficit. Soy stretched his point scoring streak to eight games and, with 123 goals and 136 assists, he is now five points away from tying the all-time franchise (Chilliwack/Victoria) record for most career points, held by Brandon Magee (113G 151A).
The Royals, ranked No. 7 in the country, improve to 14-5-1-0 and in first place overall, while the Oil Kings remain second from the bottom at 5-11-2-0 鈥� not much of a horse race if you compare the two, who obviously are running for totally different stakes.
On this night, however, Victoria was simply outworked over the first two periods of play 鈥� except for the first six minutes 鈥� against a much younger team, which has now lost five straight games.
鈥淭he first six minutes I thought we were really good and then we got away from it,鈥� said Royals head coach Dan Price. 鈥淭he difference was, we were just too far away from the puck. Instead of working hard to come back towards the puck in the defensive zone and neutral zone, we were sort of hoping it would get to us up the ice and it didn鈥檛.
鈥淎 forechecking team like Edmonton puts pressure on you; creates turnovers and that鈥檚 how we got out of synch. Fortunately in the third, the guys took ownership and righted the ship.鈥�
The Oil Kings struck first at 9:47 of the opening period on a rebound as Brett Kemp tucked the puck in behind Royals goalie Griffen Outhouse. Edmonton struck on the rebound again as Kobe Mohr popped one behind Outhouse on a power play at 1:28 of the second.
Outhouse was down on the play and complained of interference, but it fell upon deaf ears.
Eric Florchuk then swallowed up a loose puck and finally buried one on a power play as the Royals cut the lead to 2-1 at 12:31 of the middle frame.
Ryan Peckford tied it at 2-2 by redirecting Scott Walford鈥檚 point shot by Oil Kings goalie Travis Child just 1:33 into the third period. Peckford now has 12 goals with 10 of them coming at home. Last year, 10 of his 13 were at SOFMC.
CROWN JEWELS: Oil Kings development coach Fernando Pisani and Royals consulting coach Dwayne Roloson were teammates with the Edmonton Oilers in 2006 when the team lost the Stanley Cup in Game 7 to the Carolina Hurricanes. Roloson 鈥� touted as a Conn Smythe candidate for his playoff performances 鈥� was injured in Game 1 of the final and never returned, while Pisani had a remarkable 14-goal playoff outing, almost matching his 18 goals in the regular season.
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