For a while there it looked like the Victoria Grizzlies might actually go through the entire month of November without a loss at home.
Sure, it was just four games, but it was obviously too much to ask for as the locals dropped a disappointing 5-2 result to the Cowichan Valley Capitals, who recorded just their sixth victory of the season before another abysmal crowd at The Q Centre (about 350).
Two of the Capitals’ six wins have now come against Victoria (11-10-0-4).
Needless to say, it was a costly setback, failing to pick up ground on Powell River, Alberni Valley and Island Division-leading Nanaimo. More so, it left general manager and head coach Brad Knight doing a slow burn afterward.
“Coach killers. They’re coach killers is what they are, right?” he said of the outcome. “A coach goes one of two ways. He can calmly go about his business tomorrow or he can lose his mind and let it eat away at him.
“This coach is just going to go home and have a good night’s sleep and wake up and have a new day tomorrow.”
Because it was not a good night.
“I don’t think we understood sense of occasion tonight. Our best players have got to be our best players at both ends of the rink. We had too many passengers in our own zone early, and it cost us,” Knight stressed.
“How do I say it politely? Our leadership wasn’t good enough tonight and they weren’t ready to go. As a team, we need to figure out if we want to win this year or if we’re going to go 2-1-2-1-2. I never said we were going to win every game, but those are games where ice packs, cuts, scrapes — all of the things that come from laying it on the line come from — and I don’t think we were prepared to do that tonight.”
With three straight wins on home ice dating back to Nov. 7, the Grizzlies were giving whatever fans they were attracting a sign of hope in their November blue jerseys, but that went sideways on Wednesday.
The only good news was that they raised more than $5,000 auctioning off the special jerseys worn throughout the month for cancer.
Adam Osczeyski’s penalty-shot goal at 17:16 of the third period clinched it for the Capitals after the Grizzlies cut it to 3-2. Kade Kehoe added an empty-netter at 18:22.
Scoring started early as Cowichan’s Ryan Burton and Victoria’s Garrett Forster traded goals 1:23 apart by the 5:49 mark of the first period. Then Sean Harrison's shot deflected off defenceman Zach Dixon’s skate and past Grizzlies goalie Mike Stiliadis for a 2-1 Capitals lead at 12:58.
Rylan Bechtel upped the lead to 3-1 just 53 seconds into the second period as the Grizzlies looked like they had little gas in the tank.
Dane Gibson cut into the lead at 7:11 of the third as he one-timed a slapper past Capitals’ goalie Lane Michasiw on a power play.
The Grizzlies now travel to Nanaimo on Friday.
mannicchiarico@timescolonist.com
