Sunday, September 27, 2015 – Submitted by Mario Annicchiarico / Times Colonist
Houston, they have a problem, which definitely needs to be rectified.
For the fourth straight outing, the Victoria Grizzlies surrendered the first goal of the night and it ended up as a fourth straight defeat early into the B.C. Hockey league season.
The now 0-4 Grizzlies will head into their second game of the Bauer Showcase in Chilliwack today as the only team in the league without a victory after losing 4-0 to the host Chilliwack Chiefs at Prospera Centre on Saturday night.
Victoria faces the Prince George Spruce Kings at 1 p.m. today to close out their 2015-16 Showcase showing.
The Spruce Kings recorded their first win of the season earlier on Saturday, defeating Trail 6-3 to move to 1-4 in the standings. Prince George had scored just twice in the previous four losses, but now has two points the Grizzlies are still desperately in search of.
Vimal Sukumaran opened the scoring for the Chiefs with his fifth goal of the campaign on a wrap-around just 1:43 into the game setting the Grizzlies on their heels once again. But Victoria outshot the Chiefs 17-3 in the opening period, unable to get to goaltender Matteo Esposito, who recorded 27 shots for the shutout.
“We outshot them 9-2 in the first 10 minutes and we were down 1-0, but those are the types of obstacles we need to overcome,” said Grizzlies general manager and head coach Craig Didmon. “I thought we outplayed them by a lot.
“I thought it was our best 60 minutes, but we had no puck luck. They did give me reason for optimism though.”
It was a very different looking Grizzlies team with the addition of recently acquired defenceman Chuck Bennis and the return of Cody Van Lierop, Nick Guiney and Spencer Hunter all back from injuries or illness.
Bennis was picked up from the Fargo Force of the U.S. Hockey League on Wednesday and returning defenceman Van Lierop made his first start after an injury in pre-season. Guiney and Hunter are also returnees from last season.
Unfortunately, Brett Stirling went down to injury early on Saturday and Alex Peck was forced to play with a cut tongue when he was hit in the face by a puck after losing part of a tooth last week.
Carter Cochrane made it 2-0 Chiefs early in the second period and Jeremy Germain upped the lead to 3-0 midway through the second frame before Sukumaran added an empty-net goal.
Brayden Gelsinger hit the crossbar for the Grizzlies on a breakaway midway through the first period and P.J. Conlon failed to beat Esposito in the dying seconds of the opening period.
Matthew Galajda started in goal for the Grizzlies.
