The Victoria Grizzlies venture up Island tonight to attempt to keep an impressive six-game win streak going at Frank Crane Arena. On Saturday night they will host to the Alberni Valley Bulldogs and then welcome the Clippers back at The Q Centre on Sunday afternoon, in a busy and important weekend of play.
To date, the 20-20-4-0 Grizzlies have not managed a single win in six outings against the 32-15-1-1 Clippers, who are 22 points clear of Victoria, but having now played five more games. The Grizzlies have come awfully close, losing 2-1 in double-overtime at home to Nanaimo on Dec. 1, then 3-2 also at home on Dec. 19.
“Obviously this is a great opportunity. We’ve been practising hard this week in anticipation of three tough games. We know they have a lot of firepower up front,” Grizzlies captain P.J. Conlon, who has five game-winning goals this season, said of the Clippers.
“We’ve been able to address that in the past couple of games against them. Now it’s just a matter of fine-tuning our game and executing on our opportunities.”
Conlon refers to the 197 goals scored by the Clippers, who have surrendered 155. Victoria has tallied 134 times and have allowed just 121 against.
Nanaimo’s Sheldon Rempal leads the league in points with 99, including a staggering 51 goals. Matthew Hoover has 35 goals and 72 points and Devin Brosseau has added 23 goals and 70 points — all in the top five in the BCHL.
“The last two have been games where either team could have won the game, but they’re first on the Island for a reason,” said Conlon. “We have to figure out what it takes to get past them. Enough of these close games and overtime, we need to beat them.”
Dante Hahn echoed those sentiments.
“They’re the top team in our division, 12 points up on second place. Playing them twice, that’s a great opportunity to show them what we can do and show the rest of the division how good we are as a team and that we can beat them and that we can play with anyone,” he added.
“We’ve been getting closer and closer, which is a good sign for us. They’re a great team, a real fun team to play because it’s a high-tempo game.”
The Clippers are also, obviously, a possible first-round playoff matchup.
Nanaimo is 12 points up on Powell River and the Kings remain four up on Cowichan Valley, who lead Victoria by six. The Grizzlies are also six points up on Alberni Valley.
“It’ll boil down to the last days of the season, but right now it’s looking like they could be a possible matchup so it would be huge to get four points out of these two games and show them what we’re made of,” said Hahn.
IN THE DEN: Victoria point-leader Brayden Gelsinger sat out Wednesday’s exhibition game against Red Bull Salzburg due to illness.
mannicchiarico@timescolonist.com
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