Westshore Wolves howl in Panthers back yard

It was only the 17th game of the season for the Peninsula Panthers and the Westshore Wolves but it was a game that had a lot at stake.  The Wolves made the drive up the Peninsula to the Panorama Recreation Centre and they seemed to be the only team that understood what was on the line when the two teams took to the ice for the drop of the puck, the Panthers definately did not.  And when the fat lady had bellowed out her last tune and the Panthers faithful had long filtered out of the Panorama Recreation Centre, both clubs might look back at the evenings happenings as an important one in a 48-game schedule in the VIJHL.

The Panthers held a 3-point bulge over the Westshore Wolves in the battle for 3rd place and a win would move the Club 5 points up with a chance to increase the lead on Saturday when they travel up Island to face the Kerry Park Islanders.  But somebody forgot to tell the players that it was an important game in the schedule as the Panthers played an uninspired 60 minutes of hockey and fully deserved to be on the wrong end of a 4-0 score.

"I wish that I could blame the refs, or the ice conditions or something," said an exasperated Pete Zubersky.  "We have worked so hard from game one of this season to put ourselves in a position to really make some ground in the standings and then tonight we were absolutely brutal.  Their Goaltender was better than ours.  Their defence was better than ours.  Their forwards were better than ours.  Their coaches were better than ours.  Their owners were even better than ours.  It was frustrating to me.  When a visiting team comes into our barn, lays a goose egg on us, takes all three stars and really did not give us a chance to come back, it is frustrating.  We are a young squad and tonight we acted that way.  Their goaltender was lights out but on most of the shots he could have been sitting in a rocking chair and made the saves.  We had no traffic, we had no compete and we got what we had coming to us.  It is not what I expected, I'm not impressed with our Club tonight, we were awful and we gave an awful effort."

The Wolves Max Mois opened the scoring at 9:53 of the 1st period when he went in alone on Panthers Stephen Heslop, moved the puck to the backhand and made no mistake in scoring his 14th goal of the season.  Travis Oickle scored his first on the night at the 16:07 mark of the period and the teams skated to the dressing rooms with the Wolves holding a comfortable lead.  The Wolves Josh Bloomenthal scored the 2nd period's only goal when he stripped the puck off the stick of Panthers Cody Breitenstein at the 16:36 mark while killing a Wolves penalty and made no mistake roofing it past Heslop giving the Wolves a commanding 3-0 lead going into the 3rd.  And only 32 seconds into the 3rd frame Oickle pounced on another Panthers error to extend the lead to 4-0 and that was all she wrote. 

There was some fireworks with 7:50 left in the final frame when Panthers Spencer Loverock was whistled for a check from behind on a Westshore forward.  In the melee that followed, Wolves Dayne Ellison jumped Panthers Cody Breitenstein and the two exchanged a couple jabs.  Wolves Brandon Nicholson decided that he would get involved in the skirmish and was whistled for the 3rd man in for his troubles and ejected from the game.  Ellison received an instigator for his involvement and he too was ejected as was Breitenstein.  Breitenstein, Ellison and Nicholson all received five-minute majors for fighting and undoubtedly the League will be looking a bit closer at the ongoings and some suspensions will undoubtedly be forthcoming.

Heslop blocked 14 of 18 shots in 46:30 of playing time and Justin Samra mopped up in the final 13:30 of the 3rd and stopped all 4 shots directed his way.  Dillon was outstanding blocking all 27 shots directed his way in picking up the shutout win.

The three stars and all Wolves were Dillon, Oickle and defenceman Jonathan Bond.

The Panthers play Saturday evening in Kerry Park and are back at home next Friday when the play host to the Victoria Cougars.