Victoria Grizzlies News

GRIZZLIES CHOP DOWN SPRUCE KINGS

GRIZZLIES CHOP DOWN SPRUCE KINGS

Photo by Gary Woodburn

February 03, 2010 Sharie Epp ©Times Colonist -

It wasn’t a thing of beauty, but the Victoria Grizzlies’ 4-1 victory over the Prince George Spruce Kings still added up to two points on Sunday at Bear Mountain Arena.

With the win, the Grizzlies (28-15-2-6) moved back into a tie with the Langley Chiefs for third place in the B.C. Hockey League Coastal Conference standings, with two games in hand.

“The last two games, we haven’t played well,” said Grizzlies coach Victor Gervais, whose team dropped a 4-3 decision to the Nanaimo Clippers on Saturday night. “[Against Prince George], we found a way to win.”

The Spruce Kings came into Bear Mountain looking for at least one victory to take home from their fourgames-in-five-nights road trip to the Island. They suffered a 4-3 overtime loss in Nanaimo on Wednesday, came up empty-handed in Cowichan Valley, losing 4-2 and were shut out 5-0 by Alberni Valley on Friday.

Although Prince George (14-33-1-4) could have been forgiven for being tired and discouraged, those excuses weren’t going to cut it for a team three points out of the last playoff spot in the Interior Conference.

The visitors came out hard and picked up the game’s first goal, much to the disappointment of the 1,500 fans at the Bear. Jeff Earnest scored at 5:10 after his shot hit a post and trickled into the net behind Victoria goaltender Ryan Holfeld. At the other end, the Grizzlies’ offence didn’t look any better than it had against the Clippers, who controlled most of that game and won it on a last-minute goal.

Even with a power play, Sunday’s game was more than six minutes old before the Grizzlies registered a shot on net. Luckily, they didn’t need many shots for Derek Bacon to find Mike Tebbutt from behind the Spruce Kings’ net for a goal at 11:34.

“It wasn’t our best period,” Gervais said, adding sometimes a healthy lineup can cause disruption in the ranks. “Guys are moving in and out of the lineup, and you’re changing lines all the time. That might be a factor.”

According to assistant captain Brad Pawlowski, the Grizzlies’ leaders had some words for the team during the break, and things definitely picked up in the second period. Captain Jordan Heywood buried a beautiful pass from Dustin Mowrey behind Spruce Kings goaltender Kyle Nielsen to put Victoria up 2-1 at 8:32.

“All the leaders on the team are pretty good in the room. You know what you have to do,” Pawlowski said, referring to Heywood, Alex Allan and his own role. “That’s what intermission is for — time to regroup.”

Pawlowski tried to give the boys a spark at the opening faceoff, when he squared off with Prince George’s Jeremy Wiebe. He got the game’s first star for his efforts on the night, but noted the turning point of the contest was having Sean Robertson score on the power play to give Victoria a 3-1 second-period advantage. It was the first goal of the season for the Grizzlies defenceman, who has missed all but four games with a broken leg.

“It was a big goal for Robbie, and a big goal for our team.”

Graeme McCormack capped the Victoria scoring at 14:10 of the third period on a missile of a shot that the ref initially waved off. After he checked with the goal judge, however, the puck was deemed to have whistled in and out of the net.

Victoria outshot Prince George 27-23.

This week the Grizzlies board the bus for their final long road trip of the season. The team is in Westside tomorrow, moves up to Quesnel on Thursday, on to Prince George Saturday and winds up the trip in Williams Lake on Sunday.