A season-high four-game winning streak has the Langley Rivermen in second place.
The Rivermen beat the Cowichan Valley Capitals 3-2 before sweeping a home-and-home series against the Surrey Eagles, winning 6-2 and 6-5 in BCHL junior A hockey action over the weekend.
Langley also beat Surrey 7-4 last week to improve to 18-11-1-4 and 41 points in the BCHL’s Mainland Division.
The first three games were at the Langley Events Centre, while the weekend finale was Sunday afternoon at the South Surrey Arena.
Rivermen 3 Capitals 2
Langley faced a 2-0 deficit after one period when Cowichan Valley’s Luke Santerno scored in the final minute of the period. But Justin Szeto got the home side on the board with four seconds to play and Jake Kearley tied things up 21 seconds into the second period.
Colton Kehler — a former member of the Capitals — struck for the winner midway through the period.
Darien Craighead — who was part of the Kehler trade — had opened the scoring.
Bo Didur stopped 22 shots for the victory.
“It was a good team win,” said Langley’s Hunter Anderson. “We got off to a slow start but figured it out and we got momentum with the goal late in the first and then right away in the second and locked it down in the third.”
Rivermen 6 Eagles 2
On Basics for Babies night, fans didn’t have to wait long to litter the ice with hundreds of unopened packages of diapers as Kearley scored for the second straight game, this time 38 seconds in.
Joseph Drapluk tied the game with a power-play goal for Surrey but Kevan Kilistoff and Erik Udahl gave the home side the lead for good.
Hunter Anderson had the lone goal in the second period and Evan Anderson and Ben Butcher tacked on power-play goals early in the third. The Rivermen power play was three-for-seven.
Surrey’s Darius Davidson made it 6-2 in the final minute. Didur stopped 29 shots in the win.
Butcher had a goal and two helpers.
Rivermen 6 Eagles 5
The weekend finale was a much closer game as Langley trailed 4-3 early in the third before scoring three straight to take the lead for good.
Butcher led the way with two goals, while Szeto had a goal and an assist. The BCHL rookie has goals in five of his past six games. Udahl, another Langley rookie, had two helpers.
Kilistoff scored his team-leading 15th goal of the season, while Gage Torrel’s goal and an assist pulls him into a tie with Kilistoff atop the Rivermen scoring race.
Evan Anderson had the other Langley goal.
Darren Martin picked up the victory with 26 saves.
For Surrey, Ben Vikich and Darius Davidson scored twice each and Latrell Charleson had the other.
The Rivermen play three games this week before the league takes its holiday break.
They host Prince George on Dec. 18, Powell River on Dec. 19 and Victoria on Dec. 20 at the Langley Events Centre.
Admission is free for all three games as part of the team’s ‘Rivmas’ celebration.
