ANCHORAGE, AK – The Sullivan Arena crowd of 5,533 was again loud and proud from the opening faceoff as the Alaska Aces skated to an 8-2 blowout win on strong goaltending from JP Lamoureux who stopped 35 of 37 shots. Todd Ford in goal for Victoria would like to have another shot at things after giving up five goals on only 11 shots in the first two periods.
Victoria was looking strong early in the game and very motivated to get a puck past Lamoureux who had shut them out in Game 1. They got one past him in the first two minutes but it rang off the crossbar which further added to their frustration. After two consecutive power play failures for the Kings, Scott Burt started the Aces scoring avalanche with his 15th career playoff goal on a one-timer over the blocker of Ford from the right circle at 11:18 with assists to Colin Hemingway and Josh Soares. Alaska took a 2-0 lead on a blast from Colin Hemingway on a four-on-three power play at the 15:24 mark with assists from Cam Keith and Matt Shasby. Shortly after Alexandre Imbeault drilled another power play goal past the shell shocked Ford at 16:14 with assists from Colin Hemingway and Bryan Miler. The Aces scored three goals on just five shots in the first period while Victoria managed eight, without a goal, most of them coming early on.
The Aces piled on another with a power play goal from Keith near the midpoint of the second period to make the score 4-0 on assists from Miller and Colin Hemingway. Victoria finally broke Lamoureux’s spell at 13:30 of the second period when Wes Goldie fired one to the net that was deflected past Lamoureux by Darrel Lloyd on the power play making the score 4-1. Lamoureux’s scoreless streak on home ice dated back to the regular season for a total of 244 minutes. The Aces put the final nail in the coffin with a late period goal making it 5-1 at the intermission on a goal by Ryan Turek (his first of the postseason) on assists from Lance Galbraith and Imbeault. Shots on goal in the second period were in Victoria’s favor 14-6.
Julien Ellis (five saves on eight shots) replaced Ford at the start of the third period but he didn’t fare any better as early in the period Soares buried an assist from Colin Hemingway (his fourth on the night) to make the score 6-1. On top of the Aces onslaught Victoria was handed an extended five-on-three disadvantage near the middle of the final period and Burt put in the seventh goal as a result on assists from Soares and Shasby on only Alaska’s 17th shot of the game. Tomas Kana notched the Aces eighth goal (his first professional postseason goal) on another two-man advantage from Brett Hemingway and TJ Fast at 13:13. Victoria scored a late goal at 17:59 by Scott Howes on the power play with assists to Aaron Brocklehurst and Brady Leovold.
Alaska went an impressive five-for-10 on the power play while Victoria went two-for-nine. Despite the blowout the final shots on goal were heavily in Victoria’s favor by 37-22.
Game 3 will give the Salmon Kings a shot at the Aces on home ice on Wednesday night, April 29th at 7:05 PDT.
Contact the author at mike.canady@prohockeynews.com
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