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Victoria Royals edged in OT by WHL’s top-scoring Portland Winterhawks

PORTLAND 5 (OT) VICTORIA 4 It’s an old adage but apropos to the Victoria Royals, who snatched defeat from the jaws of, well, almost victory on Saturday night in Portland.
LOGO-Victoria Royals.jpg
Victoria Royals

PORTLAND 5 (OT)
VICTORIA 4

It’s an old adage but apropos to the Victoria Royals, who snatched defeat from the jaws of, well, almost victory on Saturday night in Portland.

Jake Gricius of the Winterhawks scored with 22 seconds remaining in regulation time to tie the Western Hockey League game 4-4 followed by Cross Hanas’ goal at 18 seconds of overtime in a 5-4 Portland win.

Tarun Fizer had given Victoria a 4-3 lead at 16:47 of the third period.

“There were some errors we need to clean up,” said Royals head coach Dan Price.

“We made two errors in the six-on-five [allowing Gricius to tie the game with the Portland goaltender pulled for an extra attacker].”

Price said he took responsibility for those mistakes.

“It’s the coach’s responsibility if those happen,” he said.

But the Victoria bench boss liked his squad’s effort.

“I thought our compete level was outstanding,” said Price.

And against one of the elite teams in major-junior hockey. The Winterhawks, No. 6 in the weekly Canadian Hockey League top-10 poll, moved to 44-11-7.

Victoria rookie Nolan Bentham scored his first career WHL goal to give the Royals the lead at 7:22 of the first period. Veteran Kaid Oliver extended it to 2-0 just over a minute later on the power play.

Seth Jarvis brought the Winterhawks to within one at 4:27 of the second period. It was the 42nd goal of the season for the player who is the No. 19-ranked North American skater for the 2020 NHL draft.

The Winterhawks also boast Simon Knak, Hanas and Jonas Brondberg, the No. 61-, No. 65 and No. 107-ranked North American skaters for this year's NHL draft.

Oliver’s second goal of the night, and 22nd of the season, gave Victoria a 3-1 lead at 11:11 of the second period. Jack O’Brien pulled Portland back to within one at 18:11 on assists from Jarvis and Brondberg and Lane Gilliss tied it 3-3 less than a minute later on another assist by Jarvis, which was his 97th point of the season.

Joel Hofer, who backstopped Canada to the gold medal in the 2020 IIHF world junior championship in the Czech Republic, made 18 saves for the Winterhawks. Adam Evanoff made 39 saves for Victoria in a heroic crease effort to try to keep at bay the highest-scoring team in the WHL.

Victoria is 31-23-8 with six games remaining and is almost certainly headed into a first-round playoff match-up against B.C. Division rival the Vancouver Giants, with only home-ice advantage to be decided. Victoria moved a point ahead of the Giants (32-24-5), who have a game in hand on the Royals, and were in Prince George on Saturday playing the Cougars in a late-finishing game.

Victoria and Portland meet again today, but not at the Memorial Coliseum. The Winterhawks are one of the few teams in any sport that splits its home games between venues. Saturday’s contest was at the venerable Veterans Memorial Coliseum, where the Victoria Maple Leafs used to play the Portland Buckaroos in the old pro WHL in the 1960s and where the Victoria Cougars battled the Winterhawks in the current WHL from 1971-72 to 1993-94. The Royals-Winterhawks game today is at the Moda Center, also home of the NBA Portland Trail Blazers.

The Royals’ hard-pressed roster found some relief with the return of Oliver from injury and defenceman Jacob Herauf. Victoria forward Carson Miller also returned to the lineup in Portland after sitting out a two-game suspension.

Still out were forwards Graeme Bryks and Ty Yoder, defenceman Noah Lamb and goaltender Shane Farkas.

Following the two-game set in Portland, the Royals head back across the border to play the Rockets in Kelowna on Wednesday, before returning to the Island to host the Prince George Cougars on Friday and next Saturday nights at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.

cdheensaw@timescolonist.com