Feb. 21st vs. Westshore Wolves - Playoff Action - Hockey Ops.

Good Evening Hockey Fans,

Well, here we go for another great Friday evening in the friendly confines of the Panorama Recreation Centre.  We are now set for the curtain to lift on Game 3 of this Best-of-7 series with the visiting Westshore Wolves, the first time ever that we have played them in the VIJHL playoffs.  Our Organization has a great relationship with the Wolves Organization, I really enjoy the coaching staff and the ownership group and I believe we think the same about the game of hockey on a lot of different levels.  After saying this, our series has already become somewhat heated and there was a bit of a nasty ending to Game 2 at the Q-Centre on Wednesday evening.  Playoff hockey is always more emotional than Regular Season play and this series has proven to be no different than I expected.  Both of these Clubs dearly want to advance to the next round and I expect that the remainder of the series will be similarly heated, as were the first two games.  It's Playoffs, it's hockey and that means in this Country emotions will run high.  These are some of the things that make us all want to come out to the games each and every time, it is one of the things that make us Canadians.

Alright, on Monday we played a pretty solid game but were shut down by Matt Chester in goal for the Wolves.  Matt is a 20-year-old and he has played a lot of hockey against our Club this 2013/14 season and at times has been average and at times has been as hot as any goalie could possibly be.  And on Monday night it was almost impossible to solve him.  We scored three times however, it was not enough and we came out on the wrong end of a 4-3 count.  We then travelled to Westshore to the Q-Centre (formally called Bear Mountain Arena) and played Game 2 of the series.  It was a very important contest for our Club, we certainly did not want to go down 2-0 in the series.  And it did not look good early.  After the 1st period was in the books, we trailed 2-0 and although we got back to within a goal in the 2nd frame, the Wolves once again found an answer and made it 3-1 after two stanzas were completed.  But our kids managed to score and then score again and then score again to take a 4-3 lead quite late in the game.  We ran into some penalty problems when Tylor Branzsen and Alex Milligan were chased to the box and at the very end of the two-man advantage, Corey Peterson pounded a one-timer past Stephen Heslop and it was knotted at 4 each.  Branzsen came out of the box however, we were still short one and Milligan had just over half a minute to serve.  We won the draw and Cody Breitenstein drifted a puck deep to the right of Chester.  Connor Logan chased down the Wolves forward who was first to get back to the puck and forced a turnover.  He fed Cole Glover who beat a Wolves defender to put himself in all alone with Chester and then going quickly to his backhand, he lifted the puck to the top of the cage scoring the biggest goal of the series for us.  A couple minutes later, Milligan rimmed the puck from the left wall and Jackson Skerratt picked it up on the opposite side of the ice in the offensive zone.  He quickly shot it at the Westshore net and, after it deflected off a skate, it found nothing but twine.  The goal gave us a 6-4 lead with only 1:15 left in the game and that pretty well was all she wrote.  A bit of an ugly incident ensued between Brett Sjerven and Wolves’ Tyler Smith with only three seconds remaining in the game.  I learned on Thursday evening that Brett will be out for one game however, we were still waiting to hear about the status of Smith.  I imagine he will be tagged for a minimum of three games and perhaps a lot longer.  Smitty is a good kid for the Wolves and adds a lot of toughness to their lineup and I am sure that both he and Brett would like to have the tape rewound on this one, it would probably be a different scenario if they had a chance to do it all over again.  At any rate, both will be sitting this one out tonight.

Back in the Wolves lineup tonight will be their big Defenceman Clay Carson.  Carson was involved in a bit of some extra curricular activity when the Wolves played their final Regular Season game against the Victoria Cougars and was banished to the sidelines with a two-game suspension.  I know the Wolves will be happy to have him back.  Drawing back into our lineup tonight will be forward Cody Allison and the big defenceman out of Norway, Iver Oedegaard.  Both of these kids are ready to go and should have some impact on this game I am sure.  Iver was sick for a couple weeks now but probably could have played in this series already so he should be strong tonight.  Scratched tonight will be Matthew Sheeran, Sjerven and Kyle Richardson who is a bit banged up and is out.

In the other three Best-of-7 series in the VIJHL, Victoria leads the Kerry Park Islanders 1-0 after spanking them last night at the Archie Browning Arena.  And the Comox Valley Glacier Kings are leading the Saanich Braves 2-0 after dispatching them in Comox earlier in the week and then again in Saanich at the George Pearkes last night.  The Nanaimo Buccaneers surprised the Campbell River Storm in Campbell River earlier this week, dumping them 4-1.  And then last night in Nanaimo the same two teams hooked up in a big, big game in that series.  There was no score after the first 20 minutes had been played and it looked like the game was back and forth and very evenly played.  But in the 2nd and 3rd periods, the Storm began to take over and turned the tables on the Buccaneers from the previous night and coasted to the win, knotting the series now at 1-1.  As you might recall, I picked both the Victoria/Kerry Park and the Comox/ Saanich series to go four and out for Victoria and Comox, and so far it looks like it’s going to be just that.  I also picked the Campbell River/Nanaimo series and our own head-to- head match-up with the Westshore Wolves to be a dog fight, and once again this has proven to be true.  I won’t be the least bit surprised if either of these series go to six or even the maximum seven games, and I think VIJHL fans up and down the Island will turn their focus to these two series.  Junior ‘B’ is tremendous entertainment value for the dollar and how exciting our playoffs are going to be over the next 5 weeks.

Some VIJHL awards will be presented this evening.  Some of our fellows are in the running for League hardware and I believe we have several candidates that deserve to be winners.  The awards are voted on by all the teams, we are not allowed to vote for our own staff or players.  One of the awards is also for the Coach of the Year and I would like nothing more than to see our Coach Brian Passmore take this one home.  Passy is in his 1st full season behind the bench at the Junior level and he has done a fantastic job with the Club.  He has had a big year with the Panthers and I have had one other Coach in the VIJHL tell me that he voted for Passy and really felt he was the most deserving in the VIJHL.  We will see where the chips land on this one but my fingers are crossed for him.  If Passy were to take this award, it would be the first time in the Panthers history that we were given the Coach of the Year award.  There are so many of our players that are in the running for the various awards however I think that Tate Coughlin and Sean Buchanan would be excellent choices for the Rookie of the Year.  The last time we won Rookie of the year was back in 2005/06 and the winner.....our Olympian Jamie Benn!  Now how cool would that be for one of our Rookies to be named the VIJHL rookie of the year when our former rookie of the year is looking to Medal in Sochi.  We have always said we are about development, it simply does not get any better than this.  And for a top forward, has there been anyone better than Alex Milligan.  He lead the entire VIJHL in goal scoring notching 46 goals this past season.  The all-time record is 54 and I wonder out loud if Alex had been here with us on the Peninsula for the entire season if he might have blown that number away.  Again, I would love to see this sniper in his final year in the VIJHL take home this award, he is most deserving.  Alright then, buckle up your seat belt and get ready to sit on the edge of your seat.  After splitting the first two games of the series we are really in a best-of-5 and so tonight is bigger than big in terms of who will eventually win this two-week battle.  Thank you so much for being supporters of the Club, I know that you are going to be highly entertained tonight.  And please join us for Game 5 on Monday night right here at the Panorama.  Sit back now and enjoy!!
Pete Zubersky