WENATCHEE 3
VICTORIA 1
The marquee matchup took a hit early as the Victoria Grizzlies were forced to scratch captain Cody Van Lierop, Justin Michaelian and Tyler Welsh to go with the absence of No. 1 goaltender Matthew Galajda against the Wenatchee Wild on Saturday night.
It went even further when the hosts lost forwards Nick Guiney and Lucas Clark to game misconducts in the first period.
The result was a frustrating 3-1 setback for the third-overall Grizzlies against the second-overall Wild in front of a disappointingly small crowd at The Q Centre, considering the scenario.
It was billed as the sa国际传媒 Hockey League鈥檚 top offensive club, in the Wild, against the second best defensive unit in the Grizzlies.
Victoria faced plenty of adversity, but just couldn鈥檛 quite pull it out, although goaltender Tony Rehm gave the Grizzlies a great chance, making 40 saves in a losing cause. Rehm frustrated the Wild all night long. The shots were 25-13 for the visitors over the midway mark of the second period and the game tied 1-1.
Brian Williams snapped the tie 1:10 into the third period on a power-play goal and Matt Baker added a short-handed goal at 12:10 for insurance.
鈥淚 thought the guys put in a good effort. They worked hard. All of a sudden we鈥檙e missing a couple of key centreman and it鈥檚 not easy to go about playing against a high-scoring team like that,鈥� said Grizzlies general manager and head coach Craig Didmon, who was tossed from the game after complaining that defenceman Dayne Finnson was tripped on the third goal that created a 2-on-1 break.
It fell on deaf ears.
鈥淚 thought a lot of our guys stepped up 鈥� all the guys that filled in did a good job. But I do think we got the short end of the stick as far as some of the calls went. It鈥檚 sort of like kicking a dog when it鈥檚 down,鈥� said Didmon, who had a point. Wenatchee was 1-for-7 on the power play while the Grizzlies were 0-for-4, including a key 5-on-3 advantage for 1:56 late in the second period.
A.J. Vanderbeck had the first Wild goal 8:23 into the game and Cole Pickup tied it up for Victoria when he shovelled a rebound into a gaping net four minutes later.
Anthony Yamnitsky made 23 saves for Wenatchee (25-5-2-0).
The Grizzlies are 21-6-3-3 and will play host to Nanaimo at 2 p.m. today in the teddy bear toss game.
