Leaking oil and sputtering through the latter portion of January, the Victoria Grizzlies were in search of a quick fix and a rapid start to February.
They found it courtesy of a five-goal first period that helped the Grizzlies snap a four-game losing streak via a 9-5 road victory over the Alberni Valley Bulldogs on Saturday night.
“It’s not going our way right now in the win column and we need our leaders to get us through this,” Grizzlies assistant coach Scott Hawthorne said prior to the big win.
“Obviously, we’d like to get off to a good start, especially in Alberni. But as we proved on Friday, even down a goal or two, we’re going to keep ourselves in the hockey game. We just need to put a full game together.”
Hawthorne benefited from that fast start and then some as the Grizzlies — who lost 4-2 in Nanaimo on Friday after falling behind 3-0 — scored on their first three shots of the night to chase Bulldogs starting netminder Connor LaCouvee.
Gerry Fitzgerald struck at 1:24 before Travis Stephens collected his first two goals as a member of the Grizzlies in a 56-second span by the 2:40 mark of the first period.
Harlan Orr got one back for the Bulldogs at 6:57, but Jesse Schwartz — who has settled into the second line with Stephens and Garrett Forster — added two more Victoria goals to open up a 5-1 advantage after 20 minutes.
Two of the five goals came on the power play, which was blanked on eight chances the previous night in Nanaimo.
“I thought our power play was going on Friday,” said Hawthorne. “By my count, we had 19 shots on the power play, we just didn’t get a goal.”
Despite the four-game skid (and losing five of the last six), Hawthorne, who was running the bench this weekend with head coach Craig Didmon out east recruiting, wanted his club to remain calm.
“We talked about it. There are ups and downs to the season and that’s where we are right now. But the dressing room is good,” he stressed.
“We’re doing a lot of good things. We’ve run into some hot goalies, but we’re playing well and working towards the playoffs.”
Schwartz finished with a hat-trick, while Myles Fitzgerald, Brandon Egli and Mark McLellan (empty net and short-handed) also scored for Victoria in the win, which snaps a run of 4-4-0-1 in January for the Grizzlies.
Rob Click, Scott Clark, Mitch Owsley and Quinton Wunder also scored for the Bulldogs, who trailed 6-3 after two periods.
Nic Renyard earned the win in goal for the Grizzlies.
mannicchiarico@timescolonist.com
Twitter/tc_vicsports
© Copyright Times Colonist
