Panthers take care of business with a 7-1 road win in Comox

September 21, 2019
Comox Valley, B.C.

Payton Braun playing his first Junior game ever was determined to get on the scoresheet and he did in a 7-1 Panthers road win over the Glacier Kings up in the Comox Valley on Saturday evening.  And Braun, the "Little" brother of Panthers Alternate Captain Riley Braun did not waste any time.  On his first shift of the game and with only 3:23 having be played in the 1st frame the whistle sounded and Payton was escourted to the sin bin for two minutes for High-Sticking.  And as luck would have it, he did not have to waste too much time and certainly not the full two minutes in the box when Glacier Kings Jacob Murray beat Panthers netminder Connor McKillop on the power play to put the home squad up 1-0.  The younger Braun seemed to set the tone early as both Matt Sparrow and Skyler Diamond-Burchuk were next to find themselves in the stripes bad books, each being nailed with two-minute minors and all before the game was 6:14 old.  It was not the start the Club was looking for and that was evident with a quick glance at the Panthers bench boss whose veins were pumping in his neck and whose eyes became much bigger than a proverbial plate.

Luc Pelletier stopped the bleeding to knot the game at 1-1 at the 9:25 mark when on the power play he took a nice pass from Mackenzie Benn-Wipp and snapped it past the Glacier Kings starter Zac Raesler.  Sparrow who had escaped from the penalty box was also awarded with a helper on the play.  Six more Panthers goals would follow in the next 50:35 of play on another marker from Pelletier, two off the stick of Sparrow and singles coming from Jonah Ragsdale, Alex Benger, and the older Braun sibbling. 

Connor McKillop played the first 40 minutes and picked up the win blocking 21 of 22 shots while Chris Combiadakis came in from the bullpen for the final stanza and was good on all six of the shots he faced.  Raesler stopped 19 of 24 shots in 35:29 of play before giving way to Brandon Naidu who was good on 16 of 18 pucks tossed in his direction.  Murray for the Glacier Kings and Pelletier for the Panthers were named as the Game Stars.

As the Club headed South down the Island Highway towards Greater Victoria they collectively nibbled on some Chinese food while Head Coach Brad Tippett provided some thoughts on the game between bites.

"Even though this is just the end of September we felt this was an extremely important game for us. We were obviously very upset with all aspects of Friday’s  game and challenged our players to play to our own level. We got in penalty trouble early and at one point were behind 9-2 on the shot clock and down 1-0. No one panicked and we just took over the rest of the period.
We still have trouble with excess finesse with the puck - too much scalpel and not enough hammer."


The Panthers will be back at home next Friday night when they play host to the visiting Westshore Wolves.  The puck is set to drop at 7:30 pm.