SPOKANE 3
VICTORIA 1
Move over, Victoria Royals.
You aren鈥檛 the only surprise kids on the WHL block.
The Spokane Chiefs, equally as young with nine rookies, ended Victoria鈥檚 four-game winning run to start the season while moving to 3-1 themselves.
The Chiefs defeated the Royals 3-1 before an announced crowd of 3,068 fans at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre. The Royals and Red Deer Rebels, the final remaining teams at 1.000 in the WHL, both fell in the same night Tuesday.
Victoria attacked the Spokane zone in the third period, with defenceman Joe Hicketts hitting the post 鈥� one of five Victoria rang off 鈥� with less than three minutes remaining. Then Alex Forsberg and Regan Nagy just missed in the final minute.
鈥淓verybody had their chances. The unfortunate thing is we didn鈥檛 capitalize on them,鈥� said Royals head coach Dave Lowry.
Goals at ends of periods can be momentum shifters. A textbook example of that ended the second period. There wasn鈥檛 more than a fraction of a of second remaining on the clock when Dominic Zwerger made it 2-1 for Spokane with his fourth goal of the season, thanks to some lackadaisical Victoria play in the final six seconds.
鈥淔ish [Logan Fisher winning a second-period fight] gave us a lift and we carried the play . . . and then we give up that goal,鈥� lamented Lowry
Because of their youth, both the Royals and Chiefs weren鈥檛 rated as top-half teams in the Western Conference during pre-season media predictions. Both, however, have provided some early-season fodder for skeptics.
Tyson Verheist appeared in his fourth game for Spokane, despite that the Chiefs carry a 20-year-old goaltender in Garret Hughson, who is in his fourth season with Spokane and played in a workhorse 53 games last season. The Royals found out why, as the 18-year-old Verheist was sharp in a 33-save performance.
鈥淲e were trying to make that perfect shot instead of shooting to get a rebound,鈥� said Hicketts.
Coleman Vollrath had 25 saves for Victoria.
Spokane opened scoring at 2:23 of the second period as a clearing miscue by Vollrath left the Victoria goalkeeper stranded and Hudson Elynuik with a tap into a gaping net. Dante Hannoun鈥檚 power-play laser to the top corner tied it at 17:05. Elynuik put the game on ice into an empty net in the final minute of the third period.
The Royals conclude their six-game, season-opening homestand tonight at the Memorial Centre against the Chiefs.
The Royals are in Kelowna on Friday to play the defending WHL champion Rockets in a reprise of last season鈥檚 second-round playoff series won in five games by Kelowna.
ICE CHIPS: Chiefs assistant coach Scott Burt was well known to Salmon Kings fans as an opposition player during ECHL days . . . Eric Florchuk, the Royals first-round selection in the 2015 WHL bantam draft, will join fellow Victoria prospects Matthew Smith and Grady Hobbs 鈥� representing Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, respectively 鈥� at the 2015 Western Canadian U-16 Challenge Cup to take place Oct. 28 to Nov. 1 in Calgary.
