Ryan Sinclair

Phillip Schultz powers the Victoria Royals past the Kamloops Blazers in Game 5

A seesawing series saw the Victoria Royals secure a 6-3 win on Saturday and take a 3-2 series lead over the Kamloops Blazers.

For the Royals, it was the Phillip Schultz show, as he scored three goals and added one assist to be the game’s first star.

Victoria was playing without Game 4 forwards Kody McDonald (suspension) and Tarun Fizer (undisclosed) and Schultz had a breakout game to fill the offensive void. Despite his big night, the Danish forward was the consummate teammate postgame. “It was not only me tonight, it was the whole team. It changes every game who will be the hero and today I got the bounces. There was nothing beautiful to my goals, my teammates helped me a lot today.”

Noah Lamb scored his first WHL goal

Also helping the Royals was affiliated player Noah Lamb, who recorded his first Western Hockey League goal and received the second star of the game. “I was excited to score,” said Lamb. “It’s something I’ve dreamed about since I was a kid. I thought we played good as a team and without my teammates, that can’t happen. So, thank you to them.”

The Blazers had their own highly-touted prospect score a first WHL goal, as Kamloops’ native Logan Stankoven scored in the third period.

Griffen Outhouse was excellent in the Victoria net once again, earning the win with 27 saves. While not single-handedly stealing the game, he did make some highlight reel saves, including the WHL Highlight of the Night.

The series has been back and forth, as each club has yet to win back-to-back games. As well, the team that scores the all-important first goal has won each game.

Royals Head Coach Dan Price spoke of his team’s effort in Game 5, “Discipline was a big key. We did take a few penalties but for the most part I thought we persevered through the physicality. Our special teams were good, the penalty kill was solid, the power play converted and got a goal. We got a good start off and it was just a complete team game.”

“There was a little bit more urgency and an emotion on their part,” said Blazers Head Coach Serge Lajoie. “We need to get back to playing Blazer hockey. I didn’t think that we got to that point tonight. It’s a best of seven for a reason. We have to regroup and can’t get too high or too low. We have to get focused and make sure that we have our best game in the elimination game for us on Monday.”

In the first period it was the Royals that got the all important first goal. D-Jay Jerome opened the scoring at 1:27 as he took a feed from Schultz and caught Blazers’ goaltender Dylan Ferguson going down early.  Victoria capitalized on the chance after entering the zone 3-on-1.

Kamloops responded as Ryley Appelt pounced on a loose puck in the Royals’ zone and rifled home a bullet to the high blocker-side of Griffen Outhouse. Assisting on the goal at 13:54 was Zane Franklin, much to the dismay of the Victoria “boo-birds”.

Victoria regained the lead as Schultz factored in the scoring again. The Danish forward in traffic made a tip on a Scott Walford point shot and redirected the puck past Ferguson for a 2-1 lead.

In the second period, Lamb took a feed to make it 3-1 and secure his first WHL goal. Logan Doust fought of the Blazers’ defender behind the net and found the young defencemen out front who buried it at 6:36.

(photo: Ryan Sinclair)

The Royals added to their lead as once again it was Schultz scoring his second of the game.  The forward broke in all alone and scored on the breakaway, a goal that chased Ferguson from the Blazers net.  Victoria native Dylan Garand came in as relief and looked sharp for the rest of the period, stopping six shots he faced to close out the second.

The third period saw a flurry of goals, highlighted by the Stankoven goal for Kamloops at 10:48 to make it 4-2 and keep the game interesting. Victoria added an empty-net goal by Tanner Sidaway at 18:31. Jermaine Loewen scored at 18:31, but it was too little to late.  Schultz added another empty-net goal at 19:20 for Victoria and secured his hat trick on the evening.

The series now moves to Kamloops for Game 6, another must win situation for the Blazers who will look to feed off of their fans.  “We’re definitely going to feed off the home crowd,” said Lajoie.  “We also can feed off of the experience that we’ve gained here in the month of March. This could potentially be our eighth elimination game because we had to almost win out just to make the playoffs. So, I’ll remind the guys that we’ve been here before and we can we know the kind of hockey that we need to play to be successful.”