It was tough to tell just who was the home team on Tuesday night as the Victoria Royals slipped into Rexall Place in Edmonton and gave the host Oil Kings a reason to be searching the top drawer of the medicine cabinet for some pain relief.
With five Edmonton and area players in the lineup — Brandon Magee, Keegan Kanzig, Jake Kohlhauser, Logan Fisher and call-up Matt Dykstra — the Royals stunned the Eastern Conference leaders 5-3 in Western Hockey League play, snapping the Oil Kings’ nine-game win streak.
All five had points in the Victoria win.
“We might have to hang around here a little more,” said a delighted Royals head coach Dave Lowry, whose team now heads to the Christmas break. “It was a nice win and it’s a nice way to go into the break for our team. Both teams were missing key players, but this is a tough building to win in.”
The Oil Kings were missing defenceman Griffin Reinhart and forward Curtis Lazar, who are both currently with Canada’s world junior team, but the Royals were without key point-producer Logan Nelson and have long been without rearguards Joe Hicketts and Jordan Fransoo.
Lowry obviously welcomed the early holiday gift with open arms as players now disperse before meeting up again on Boxing Day in preparation for a Dec. 27-28 weekend set against the visiting Prince George Cougars at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
The Royals finish 3-1-1 on the road trip and improve to 23-13-0-2 overall at the break.
>>> GET MORE VICTORIA ROYALS COVERAGE
On Tuesday, Mitch Moroz wasted little time getting the home team started as he jumped on a loose puck just 4:30 into the opening period to beat Royals’ netminder Patrik Polivka for the 1-0 lead.
Edmonton had opened up an 8-0 shots advantage early, but the headache soon began as Dykstra — playing in just his third game with the Royals as a call-up from the Canadian Athletic Club in the Alberta capital — collected his first.
The 16-year-old’s shot missed the net, ricocheted off the glass and off Oil Kings goaltender Tristan Jarry’s pad and in the net at 11:37. Kanzig and Magee were both credited with assists.
Axel Blomqvist and Ben Walker then scored 28 seconds apart five minutes later with Kohlhauser — of St. Albert, a suburb just northwest of Edmonton — recording an assist on the third goal.
Victoria native Jack Palmer made it 4-1 Royals in the opening minute before Lane Bauer cut into the lead for Edmonton with a power-play goal late in the middle stanza.
Dysin Mayo, of Victoria, recorded the Oil Kings’ third goal at 8:13 of the third period, but Magee clinched it with an empty-netter with 52 seconds to go for his third point of the evening in front of friends and family. Magee was also plus-3 on the night.
The two quick goals were pivotal for Victoria as was killing off most of a lengthy 5-on-3 in the second in which Bauer scored with one second remaining in the man advantage.
“For us, that’s part and parcel,” Lowry said of the quick tallies. “We talk about shifts after goals, for or against, and that was big part of it.”
mannicchiarico@timescolonist.com
Twitter.com/tc_vicsports
