The Langley Rivermen struck for 11 goals as they won a pair of weekend hockey games to break out of a mini-slide which had seen them lose three of their past four games.
The Rivermen doubled the Coquitlam Express 6-3 on Friday night before grounding the Surrey Eagles 5-2 on Sunday. Both junior A hockey games were at the Langley Events Centre and improved the Rivermen to 11-6-0-0 and third place in the BCHL’s Mainland Division.
Langley trails first-place Wenatchee by three points but do hold a pair of games in hand.
“We played pretty decent hockey through that stretch (one win in four games) but just couldn’t capitalize on our opportunities,” said Langley head coach and general manager Bobby Henderson.
“And this weekend, we capitalized on our opportunities and got good goaltending.”
The Rivermen needed both goalies this weekend as starting netminder Bo Didur tweaked his ankle late in the second period against Coquitlam. Back-up Nickolas Trenciansky came in and stopped all eight shots he faced and then made 22 saves on 24 shots in the win over Surrey.
As a tandem, Didur and Trenciasnky are third in the BCHL with a combined save percentage of .926, trailing only Penticton (.937) and Powell River (.927).
The offence was led by Justin Fregona, who had two goals and two assists versus the Express. He has a team-leading 13 goals and 20 points while Matty Saharchuk also tallied twice. Adam Sinclair and Logan Mick had the others.
Matthew Graham scored twice in the win over Surrey.
The Eagles had cut the lead to 3-2 after 40 minutes, but Justin Szeto and John Schuldt scored less than two minutes apart in the third to seal the victory.
Saharchuk had the other Rivermen goal and he now has six goals and a dozen points since joining Langley 10 games ago.
Max Kaufman had three assists.
The Rivermen look to make it three straight wins when they host Surrey once again on Thursday (Nov. 5) night at the LEC. The team also plays in Chilliwack on Nov. 6 before closing the weekend with a Saturday night game on Nov. 7 vs. Salmon Arm.
