Thursday, October 29, 2015 – Submitted by Mario Annicchiarico / Times Colonist
After a gut-wrenching loss the night previous, Victoria Grizzlies general manager and head coach Craig Didmon was hoping for a bounce-back performance on Thursday at The Q Centre, returning home after four straight on the road.
He got it by way of a 3-1 victory over the struggling Powell River Kings (10-8), who lost their fifth consecutive game.
They weren’t about to get any sympathy from Didmon, whose team had dropped three of its last four. It was, however, the second straight triumph at home over the Kings as the Grizzlies recorded a 5-2 win on Oct. 16, which began Powell River’s slide.
With the wounds of Wednesday’s last-minute 5-4 loss in Nanaimo — in which they gave up two goals in the last 35 seconds — still fresh, Didmon was hoping his young club could shake it off.
They did, led by the team’s No. 1 line of veteran Brayden Gelsinger and recent additions Dante Hahn and Colby Livingstone.
“Sometimes when you have tough defeats like that it just builds resiliency and I think we played a great game,” said Didmon. “I thought we put a full 60 minutes together. The guys were deserving of the two points.”
Gelsinger fed Hahn for the opener on a nifty move around Kings netminder Jeff Smith at 15:10 of the first period.
How good has the trio been?
Gelsinger, Hahn and Livingstone had seven points in Wednesday’s loss. Hahn now has a goal and four assists in five games since joining the team a week ago. Gelsinger had scored in the two previous games and Livingstone has three goals and a helper in eight games played.
“Dante and Colby are skilled guys and it definitely helps playing with other skilled guys like that,” Didmon said.
Tyler Welsh poked in a loose puck to make it 2-0 at 17:40 of the first period and Keyvan Mokhtari upped the Victoria lead to 3-0 on a power play at 5:09 of the second.
Powell River’s Austin Kamer finally beat goalie Matthew Galajda at 13:09 of the third as the Grizzlies are now 4-12-0-2 and will end a tough run tonight at home at 7 against the Cowichan Valley Capitals. That will be Victoria’s sixth game in eight days.
IN THE DEN: Children attending tonight’s game with a costume on will receive free admission.
