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Grizzlies grab overtime win to level series against Powell River

The Victoria Grizzlies have wrestled back home-ice advantage and are now down to a best-of-three in their B.C.

The Victoria Grizzlies have wrestled back home-ice advantage and are now down to a best-of-three in their B.C. Hockey League Island Division final series after recording a 5-4 overtime win over the Powell River Kings at Hap Parker Arena on Tuesday night.

The victory evens the best-of-seven matchup 2-2 with Game 5 set for Thursday at 7 p.m. at The Q Centre before Game 6 returns to Powell River on Saturday at 5 p.m.

Nick Guiney notched the overtime winner for the Grizzlies just 33 seconds into the extra session. It was his second goal of the game and just second of the playoffs.

T.J. Friedmann scored his first two goals of the post-season for Victoria in an up-an-down game in which the visitors trailed 1-0 early, got up 3-1, slipped behind 4-3, only to pull out the key victory in the swing game. Lucas Clark also scored for the winners.

Kyle Betts, with a pair, Cam Donaldson and Carter Turnbull replied for the Kings, who recorded their first power-play goal of the series on Betts’ second tally of the night which tied it at 3-3 early in the third period.

Powell River is just 1-for-14 with the man advantage through four games. Victoria is 3-for-15 on the power play in a very telling statistic.

Grizzlies goalie Matthew Galajda, named the BCHL player of the week on Monday, made 29 saves on Tuesday while Brian Wilson stopped 36 shots for the Kings.

“In Game 2 we pushed the pace more and won more battles,” Grizzlies captain Cody Van Lierop offered up before the late-starting Game 4.

“On Monday [a 2-1 loss] we maybe sat back too much in the third period and didn’t push as much as we should have.”

They got the push-back required on Tuesday and hope to carry that momentum into Thursday’s outing.

Powell River had won Game 1 3-2 in double overtime.

mannicchiarico@timescolonist.com

Twitter/tc_vicsports