VICTORIA, B.C. – The Victoria Salmon Kings came home after the first two games in the series for some serious soul searching. They had been completely taken apart in the first two games of the series drubbed by a combined score of 11-2. There hope was some home cooking and rest in their own beds would give them enough of a change of pace to get their game together and shut down the powerful Aces. The regulation size rink in Victoria also would help playing into the hands of the banging, grinding style of the SK’s.
Victoria went back to Todd Ford (24 saves on 29 shots) in goal after he was pulled in Game 2 in favor of Julien Ellis who fared no better against the talented Aces forwards.
Alaska was of course looking to do more of the same and there was no reason to think they couldn’t, especially with “do everything” forward Matt Stefanishion returning to the lineup having missed the first two games on injured reserve. JP Lamoureux (31 saves on 33 shots) remained in goal after a combined 1.0020goals against average over the first two games.
The Salmon Kings got off to a quick start, for their first lead in the series, on a goal by Olivier Labelle at 3:01. Labelle buried the rebound of a shot by Gary Gladue that deflected off Chris St. Jacques on the way to the net. St. Jacques then buried a one-timer from the slot at 18:41 to take a 2-0 lead going to the break with assists to Labelle and Darrel Lloyd. With the goal it appeared momentum in the series had clearly shifted as in addition to the score the shots in the first period were in Victoria’s favor by a 12-9 mark. For Ford, things were looking up after shutting down the Aces for a full period.
The second period saw Victoria control much of the play but Lamoureux went to work to keep Alaska close enough to stay in the game as Victoria outshot the Aces 10-9.
Then the roof fell in. Alaska stormed back with four goals on five shots over the first half of the final period. First the Aces cut the lead in half on a goal from the stick of Colin Hemingway that stunned the crowd of (4,449) to silence. Assists on the goal went to Cam Keith and Bryan Miller at 2:57 on Hemingway’s wrister which went just out of the reach of Ford’s glove. Thirty-eight seconds later Scott Burt rushed over the blue line and took a pass from Stefanishion and fired the puck over the blocker of Ford with a second assist to Ryan Turek to even the score. The Aces then took the lead on a blast by Josh Soares on assists from Keith and Colin Hemingway and the momentum had clearly shifted back Alaska’s way. Colin Hemingway threw a seemingly harmless shot in from the blue line that found its way between the pads of Ford at 8:46 on the power play with an assist to Matt Shasby, giving the Aces a 4-2 lead.
Victoria had a chance to get back in the game with a five minute major=2 0power-play after Stefanishion was whistled for slashing Gary Gladue. Stefanishion also received a game misconduct for the infraction. The Salmon Kings were unable to convert on the man advantage and Darrel Lloyd took a holding penalty that effectively took the ‘Kings out of the running for the evening. Vladimir Novak added insult to injury with an unassisted, shorthanded goal, making the final score 5-2. Despite the loss the final shots on goal were in the Salmon Kings favor by a 33-29 mark.
Alaska went one for six on the powerplay and scored shorthanded while the Kings were shutout on four chances. With the come-from-behind win the Aces will have a chance to close out the series at Victoria’s Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre on Friday night.
Contact mike.canady@prohockeynews.com
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