It was March Madness, hockey style.
Yet when the spray settled Saturday night, still nothing was decided.
The Kamloops Blazers and Kelowna Rockets will contest a special play-in game Tuesday in Kamloops with the winner advancing to meet the Victoria Royals in the first round of the Western Hockey League playoffs beginning next Friday and Saturday at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
The Royals already had second place sewn up in the B.C. Division and will have home-ice advantage against Kelowna or Kamloops, who tied for third place in the standings following the tense whiplash action in their games last night, which necessitated Tuesday’s special play-in game.
Kamloops, trailing 2-1 in Prince George, scored three goals in the final three minutes to beat the Cougars 4-2 while Kelowna edged the Vancouver Giants 3-2 in overtime as the Blazers and Rockets concluded their regular seasons deadlocked for third place in the B.C. Division.
The Royals’ 2018-19 regular season, meanwhile, will go into the books at 34-30-4 following a meaningless 5-1 loss in Everett to the Silvertips.
D-Jay Jerome’s 23rd goal closed out regular-season scoring for Victoria.
The Royals injury situation will bear scrutiny heading into the playoffs. Out were forwards Kody McDonald, Kaid Oliver, Tyus Gent, Sean Gulka and defencemen Matthew Smith and Jameson Murray. Blueliners Scott Walford and Mitchell Prowse were healthy scratches. With starting goaltender Griffen Outhouse riding the bench in favour of rookie backup Brock Gould, there were nine regulars out of the line-up for Victoria.
There were 8,393 fans out at Angel of Winds Arena in Everett, but both teams rested regulars — including the Silvertips’ 2019 NHL-draft projected goaltender Dustin Wolf — in a game that had no bearing on the standings.
The U.S. Division-champion Silvertips lost out on first place in the Western Conference to the B.C. Division and conference-champion Giants following Friday night’s 3-2 shootout loss in Victoria.
Everett will finish 47-16-5 and play the Tri City Americans, the first Western Conference first wild card, in the opening round of the playoffs.
Everett GM Garry Davidson, former GM and head coach in the BCHL of both the Victoria Salsa and Nanaimo Clippers, has constructed a physically large team in Puget Sound with 16 players six feet or taller and 10 of them six-foot-one and taller. And they aren’t slow. The defending Western Conference-champion Silvertips are back in the hunt as a CHL top-10 ranked squad.
