The Kamloops Blazers and Victoria Royals renewed hostilities in a tight battle Friday night in Victoria, with the Blazers coming out with a 2-1 victory.
A heated first round playoff battle last year led to some carried over animosity in the first meeting of these clubs this season.
With both teams looking to establish themselves within the BC Division, neither team had a clear advantage throughout the game. An entertaining game saw plenty of good scoring chances, a couple of fights, as well as the expected post-whistle antics.
“There was a little bit of hate between these teams and a hard hitting physical fast pace,” said Royals’ defenceman Will Warm. “It was a great atmosphere out there.”
Although Victoria Head Coach Dan Price thought his club played physical, but would like to see even a little more. “Both teams were physical and tenacious. There’s a little bit of rough stuff, but it wasn’t egregious. It was about a seven out of 10 for us physically. Pretty good, but we can be better.”
The tight game was clinched for the Blazers with a third period goal from Inaki Baragano. The native of Lausanne, Switzerland scored the game winner as Royals goaltender Brock Gould was screened in front.
“It was a bit of a breakdown in our neutral zone,” said Price on the the Blazers game-winning goal. “Kamloops got a little bit too much space and we didn’t close the shot lane. It was a seeing-eye puck that got through. I don’t think Brock saw it.”
“The guys battled really hard,” added Warm. “A couple of breakdowns led to their goals. But at the end of the day, I think it was a game we can really build on as a team, we did a lot of good things.”
Victoria struck first to open the scoring early. Warm carried into the Kamloops’ zone and found a wide open River Fahey out front for a goal at 3:35. The Blazers seemed unfazed by the early goal and continued to push the pace. An early man-advantage went the other way on Kamloops as the Royals pressured and had three chances while on the penalty-kill.
Tempers boiled over as coming out of the penalty box Sean Strange hit Sean Gulka with a clean hit. Gulka took exception, and the two dropped the gloves. To the hometown fans delight, Gulka had the edge in the tussle and gave a spark to his team.
Kamloops’ netminder Dylan Garand looked sharp in the first period and showed his hometown of Victoria why he was the reigning Western Hockey League Goaltender of the Week. Final period shots were 13 to 9 in favour of the Royals.
The second period was all Kamloops Blazers, leading to the BC Division leaders scoring on the powerplay. Blazer captain Zane Franklin made a nice behind-the-back pass to find Ryan Hughes, who scored his fourth of the season to knot the game at one goal apiece.
A favourable Kamloops bounce led to a Logan Stankoven breakaway, but Gould stood tall to make the save and keep the game tied.
The Blazers kept the pressure up on the Royals by using a fast transition game and looked in full control midway through the period. Surprisingly, Victoria Head Coach Dan Price did not call a timeout to settle his club down, but relied on his leaders to calm the storm.
“The leadership group really took care of that,” said Price. “You can hear it on the bench. They understood what needed to be done. We lost our physicality there and started letting Kamloops skate around. Once we started finishing some shots, we got the puck back. That’s a testament to our leadership group.”
A late powerplay for Victoria also helped ease the Blazer pressure and keep it from being dominated by Kamloops.
Early in the third, Nolan Jones took exception to a hit on his teammate by Ryley Appelt and the two squared off in the game’s second fight of the night.
The Blazers took their first lead of the night in the third as Baragano scored his second of the season at 11:20 and made the game 2-1. Kyrell Sopotyk worked the screen in front, not allowing Gould to see most of the point shot.
Victoria pushed for the equalizer late, and called a timeout with Gould pulled and less than a minute to go. The Blazers hung on for the 2-1 victory and took the first game of the weekend series.
“I was really happy with the effort,” reflected Price. “We wish that we would have come out on the winning end of it, but definitely cannot fault the effort of the process. I thought both teams played extremely well. We’re going to try to improve a few things and clean a few things up tomorrow.”
Captain Schultz
Earlier in the day, the Royals announced Phillip Schultz as the team’s captain. The Rodovre, Denmark native became the team’s seventh captain in Royals’ history.
“It’s a huge honor for me,” said the new captain. “I’m really proud and I will make sure that I don’t let this franchise down. We have a great group. It’s not only me, there are some huge leaders on this team. It’s an honor and I’m really proud of being the captain of the Royals.”
“He’s a great leader in the room and a lot of guys look up to him,” added Warm. “He works hard and brings it every night. All the guys in the room are really happy with him leading the way for us.”
“With the leadership group, Philip is the voice.” said Price of his new captain. “He brings a very dynamic, outgoing, boisterous style. You can see it when he’s with the media, you can see it in his style of play on the ice. That’s something our team really respects, including the rest of the leadership group.”
