CALGARY 7 VICTORIA 6 (OT)
One might think the Victoria Royals would be giving away a bit of their home-ice advantage by hosting a Country Night promotion in a game against a team from Cow Town. It was a bad omen. Maybe feeding off all the twangy music played during the night, the Calgary Hitmen rallied from a 5-1 deficit for a 7-6 overtime victory.
The winner in extra time came off a turnover by Victoria captain Jordan Fransoo, which allowed Pavel Padakin to go in alone and put a shifty move on Victoria goaltender Coleman Vollrath for his second goal of the game.
Early on, it was a good old fashioned West Coast soaking as Victoria built its big lead before 4,413 fans at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre. But this was a resilient Calgary squad.
Victoria was led by Ben Walker as the 20-year-old scored twice on a three-point night. But that was small consolation for the Minnesotan.
“It fell apart on us,” said Walker. “We got too individual. This should be a learning experience for us. Calgary is a good team and doesn’t give up, while we took our foot off the gas. We thought we had it in the bag. Maybe we took them lightly. But they are a very good team and they got their momentum going.”
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The Royals (35-16-4), an honourable mention again in this week’s CHL national top-10 poll, extended their undefeated run to seven games. But they will have to wait to record the franchise record 36th victory to eclipse the former standard of 35 wins established last season and on which they currently sit. They have 17 games remaining in the season to do it.
Victoria scored a power-play hat-trick in the first period on counters by Walker, Austin Carroll with his team-leading 26th goal, and Axel Blomqvist, the latter with just 13 seconds remaining as the Royals took a 3-0 lead into the first break. A helter-skelter second period ended with the Royals leading 5-3. It featured Victoria goals by Walker, his 22nd of the season, and Logan Fisher while Padakin, Chase Lang and captain Jaymen Rissling countered for Calgary.
A goaltending error by Calgary’s Mack Shields allowed Steven Hodges to make it 6-3 at for Victoria at 4:19 of the third period. But Calgary kept hanging around with Brady Brassart deflecting home an Alex Roach point shot at 5:03. Adam Tambellini, a former BCHLer and third-round draft pick of the New York Rangers, wired home a power-play goal at 6:36 and suddenly Calgary was within one at 6-5. Mike Winther, a second-round Dallas Stars draft pick acquired recently from the Prince Albert Raiders, tied it 6-6 by squeezing the puck through Victoria goaltender Coleman Vollrath’s legs at 12:23.
The result halted the recent Hitmen (33-15-6) slide, which included a 7-2 loss in Victoria on Tuesday. Calgary is 4-7-1 over the last 12 games after a torrid run of 16-1-1 in the previous 18.
Calgary-native Vollrath, the WHL leader in goals-against average and save percentage heading into the game, finished with 27 saves. It was the first time in 11 starts in which Vollrath has allowed more than two goals in a game. Shields made 38 saves for the Hitmen.
ICE CHIPS: The league is reviewing Royals forward Logan Nelson’s charging penalty from Tuesday’s game and he may face suspension. Nelson wasn’t dressed Wednesday, regardless, due to an injury … Goaltender Patrik Polivka, who is day-to-day with an injury, was not dressed Wednesday for the second consecutive day. The Royals have called-up Michael Herringer from the Kerry Park Islanders of the Island Junior League to back-up Vollrath.
