VICTORIA 5 (SO)
TRI-CITY 4
The Tri City Americans did what few teams have been able to recently against the Victoria Royals in the Western Hockey League.
Tri City (23-25-3) allowed Victoria (33-15-5) to get ahead, but then managed to make a game of it Friday night.
The Royals still won 5-4 on a shootout goal by Dante Hannoun, to the top shelf, to push its winning streak to seven games and points-earned run to 10 consecutive games. But the Americans salvaged a point, although they had a three-game winning streak snapped.
“It’s parity. You have to give these guys [Americans] credit,” said Royals head coach Dave Lowry.
The Royals used their highly-effective special teams — Tyler Soy short-handed and Vladimir Bobylev on the power play — to score on their first two shots of the game before 3,682 fans at the Toyota Center in Kennewick, Washington.
After Tyler Sandhu pulled the hosts to within one, Regan Nagy’s short-handed goal made it 3-1 for Victoria at 17:54 of the opening period. That was it for Americans starting goaltender Evan Sarthou, a home-state Washington product and a top-10 ranked goalkeeper for the 2016 NHL draft, who was replaced by Nicholas Sanders.
Usually, that’s money for the Royals, who are 26-5-3 when scoring first and 22-3-3 when leading after one period. But three consecutive Tri Ciy goals in the first five minutes of the second period by Brendan O’Reilly, Nolan Yaremko and Parker Wotherspoon gave the Americans the lead and chased Royals starter Coleman Vollrath from the nets in favour of back-up Griffen Outhouse. Bobylev’s second goal of the night brought Victoria level at 4-4 at 11:05 of the middle period.
“We knew the Americans were going to have a push,” said Lowry.
“We had great first and third periods but then got away from our game in the second period and gave away too many turnovers.”
The Victoria special teams continued special as the power play is 14-for-57 over the last 12 games while the Royals’ penalty kill has held the opposition at bay 38 times over the last 40 chances, and scored twice shorthanded Friday, although Wotherspoon’s goal was tallied on the odd man for Tri City.
“We press and create opportunities on the penalty kill,” said Lowry.
Heading into Friday night, Victoria that had outscored the opposition 32-6 in its last six games.
The Americans are ninth in the 10-team Western Conference and five points adrift of the eighth-place Portland Winterhawks and the final playoff spot in the conference.
Vollrath made eight saves and Outhouse 16 for Victoria. Sarthou made four saves and Sanders 19 for the Americans.
Jordan Topping, the 18-year-old former Cowchan Valley Capitals winger from Salt Spring Island, picked up an assist and is second in Tri-City scoring with 22 goals and 50 points.
The Royals conclude their two-game American Division excursion tonight in Portland against the Winterhawks before returning to Blanshard Street for a Monday matinee against the Everett Silvertips and a Tuesday night game against the Edmonton Oil Kings.
