A five-game win streak came to a skidding halt last week, when the Vancouver Northeast Chiefs ran aground to the Fraser Valley Thunderbirds in B.C. Major Midget Hockey League action.
The Burnaby-based Chiefs dropped a pair of games, by scores of 4-0 and 5-4, to the T-birds, resulting in the two teams trading places in the BCMMHL standings.
The home-and-home series started with a rare 4-0 loss at Burnaby’s 8-Rinks. In Sunday’s rematch, the Chiefs – who draw players from Burnaby, New West, the Tri-Cities and Ridge Meadows zones – fell behind 5-1 before the game was 22 minutes old. Although they battled back, they fell one-goal shy.
Scoring for the Chiefs were Kaidan Johnson, Ben Fontaine, Thomas Vela and Dylan Smail.
Although they sit in fifth place, the squad has a solid 15-6-0 record, and are just two points back of third-place Cariboo, with a game in hand.
The team’s offensive leader is Burnaby’s Dante Berrettoni, a former Burnaby minor hockey association product, who stands third overall in league scoring with 18 goals and 11 assists over 21 games.
Johnson, also from Burnaby, has 14 goals and 13 assists in 21 games, while teammate Daniel Juca has produced eight goals and 17 points over 18 games to sit among the team’s top-four scorers.
New Westminster’s Markus Johansen is one of the team’s pillars on defence.
The Chiefs head to Nanaimo this weekend to play the North Island Silvertips.
