They say home cooking is good for the soul, for the Kamloops Blazers, it has also been good for points. Heading into this one the Blazers had won six straight at home but due to their poor form on the road have found themselves on the outside of the playoff picture.
Coming off a six-point weekend for the Thompson Blazers of the BC Major Midget League 15-year-old Kamloops born forward Logan Stankoven found himself back in the lineup for his 2nd career WHL game.
Despite a decent start to the game, the Blazers found themselves trailing early when the Moose Jaw Warriors’ Tristan Langan scored his 33rd of the season, good for second most in the WHL, off a defensive turnover.
Luckily, or unluckily depending on how you look at it, the Blazers are used to playing down early in games and they continued to push the Warriors.
Three minutes after the Warriors took the lead, Brodi Stuart snapped a shot past Warriors goaltender Adam Evanoff after a slick pass from line mate Orrin Centazzo tying the game at one.
The Warriors returned serve later in the period when ex-Prince George Cougar Justin Almeida scored on a power play.
With just under four minutes left to play in the first the Warriors bumped their lead up to two after import forward Daniil Stepanov scored his 4th of the year on a play that found him wide open in front of Blazer goalie Dylan Ferguson.
Ferguson wouldn’t allow another goal the rest of his night as he was replaced by backup goaltender Dylan Garand to start the 2nd period.
Garand stood tall in the 2nd stopping all nine of Moose Jaw’s shots allowing the Blazers to find their game.
Blazer skipper Jermaine Loewen scored on nifty deflection after defenceman Montana Onyebuchi was tripped in the high slot causing the puck to squib forward toward the net and cutting the Warrior lead to back to one.
Coming into the third period, down a goal, the Blazers had to know they would be seeing a full compliment of Moose Jaw’s top defence pairing of Jett Woo and Josh Brook making yet another comeback rather difficult.
Kamloops pushed hard for, what seemed like, the entire period but couldn’t break through for the game tying goal.
Late in the period, Almeida scored his second of the game, and then on a power play Dalton Hamaliuk scored his third of the season putting the Blazer comeback out of reach at a score of 5-2.
This loss is now the Blazers fifth in a row and they find themselves with only one game in hand over the Prince George Cougars and a full two points behind them for the final wildcard playoff spot.
Kamloops will need to move past this one quickly if they wish to have any chance at two points on Friday when they take on the WHL’s best, Prince Albert Raiders.
