Penticton Vees dominated the Trail Smoke Eaters in their last game against each other with a 7-0 victory on Saturday night at the South Okanagan Events Centre.
The Vees used multi-point efforts from six different players while Kaeden Lane turned aside each of the 22 shots thrown his way in his fifth shutout of the season in a 7-0 victory.
The Vees have won every game of their shortened pod season except for one. Puck drops at 4 p.m. tonight for their last game of the year against the Cranbrook Bucks.
A late power play gave the Vees an opportunity to get the game in their favour and they did just that with a terrific passing play to set up the game’s first goal in Saturday night action. Luc Wilson played a pass to the slot as Jacob Quillan looked off a shot and passed to the left face-off circle where Liam Malmquist snapped a shot past a diving Smoke Eater goaltender Logan Terness on his blocker side for his 8th goal of the season with just 1.5 seconds remaining in the period for a 1-0 lead.
The Vees continued that scoring trend early in the 2nd period as Tyler Ho found the back of the net just 15 seconds into action in the middle stanza.
Just moments after that, 46 seconds in fact, Jacob Quillan scored in his fifth straight game to push the Vees lead to 3-0.
The Vees continued to add pressure and bring plenty of energy to the middle frame, firing a total of 19 shots on goal and pushing their advantage to 4-0 with Stefano Bottini finding the back of the net. Bottini took a pass from Luc Wilson in the left face-off circle and snapped a shot through the legs of Terness for his 4th tally of the year for a 4-0 lead heading into the final period of play.
Penticton pushed three more goals into the back of the net in the 3rd period beginning with the first of two in the period from Frank Djurasevic. He banked in a rebound off a Ryan Upson shot from the slot past the blocker side of Terness at the 2:50 mark of the period.
A five-minute major power play resulted in the Vees scoring twice to end the game with Djurasevic collecting his second goal of the game before Tristan Amonte finished the scoring with his 5th marker of the campaign with just 31 seconds remaining to round out a 7-0 score in favour of the Vees.
Kaeden Lane was stellar in the Vees net again, making 22 saves on 22 shots in his 5th shutout of the season and 14th win of the season while Logan Terness stopped 44 of the 51 shots fired his way in his 5th loss of the season.
The Vees (17-1-0-1) will conclude their regular season with a matchup against the Cranbrook Bucks (3-15-0-1) on Sunday at the South Okanagan Events Centre. Puck drop is slated for 4 p.m. with the game broadcasted live on EZ Rock AM 800 as well as on HockeyTV.com.
