With so much top-shelf talent on the ice — including a combined four players who are candidates to represent several countries at the 2015 world junior championship — chances were good the hockey would be compelling Tuesday night at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
It was, as the surging Portland Winterhawks (15-12-3) defeated the Victoria Royals 6-4 to win their sixth consecutive WHL game before 3,779 fans.
The dogged Royals (15-14-2) twice trailed by three goals before Brandon Magee, the all-time Chilliwack Bruins/Victoria Royals franchise leader in games played with 282, tied it 4-4 at 8:31 of the third period. But then a glaring Magee turnover in the neutral zone allowed Portland to get the winner with a shorthanded goal at 10:25 by Oliver Bjorkstrand, under NHL contract to the Blue Jackets and who has six goals in his last four games. The shifty Dane continued his reputation as a Royals killer with his 12th goal in 16 career games against Victoria.
“I’ve got to be better than that in the neutral zone … they are a very opportunistic team,” said Magee.
“We’ve got to learn from the mistakes we made out there tonight. We can’t get down three goals to a team like that. But we did a good job battling back.”
The ever-lurking Travis Brown, who earlier in the game scored his league-leading 11th and 12th goals of the season for a defenceman, just missed tying the game with the potential hat-trick when he rattled a shot off the short post with three minutes remaining. Another Victoria blue-liner, Joe Hicketts, rifled another shot off the post in the last minute as the Royals were perhaps unlucky not to have another fate.
“We probably deserved to push the game to overtime. But when you spot a team like that an early lead [Portland led 3-0 just over six minutes into the game], you are digging yourself a deep hole,” said Victoria head coach Dave Lowry.
Lowry said the Magee turnover was one of several issues that decided the outcome: “We don’t pin a loss on one person. We win as a team and lose as a team. We know we made mistakes.”
Nic Petan, who will likely join Hicketts on the Canadian team to the world juniors, put it away with an empty-net goal for Portland with five seconds remaining.
Chase De Leo, the Californian who earlier in the day was announced as an invitee to the U.S. team selection camp for the world junior championship, opened scoring for Portland on the power play at 3:43 and then assisted on Alex Schoenborn’s goal at 5:22. Defenceman Keoni Texeira made it 3-0 on Portland’s seventh shot at 6:06, resulting in Victoria goalkeeper Coleman Vollrath being chased from the first period for the fifth time this season.
A soft goal by Dominic Turgeon on Jayden Sittler, who replaced Vollrath in the Victoria net, was about the only thing you could blame Sittler for in a 21-save performance.
Tyler Soy’s sixth goal of the season, on the power play, was the other Victoria goal that eluded Adin Hill in a 28-save performance for Portland.
The Royals play the Saskatoon Blades on Friday at the Memorial Centre.
