The Penticton Vees got a late power-play goal from Jay O’Brien and three-points from Liam Malmquist and Danny Weight to help them to a 5-3 victory over the Wenatchee Wild on Saturday night.
It was a strong start to the game for Yaniv Perets as Wenatchee jumped out to an opening shot advantage of 6-0 before Penticton used that momentum to chargeback and, on their first shot of the game, opened the scoring at the 5:55 mark of the first period.
READ MORE: Vees take first game in double-header in Wenatchee
A power play doubled the Vees lead later in the first period with Weight finishing off a nice feed on the goal line. Colton Kalezic took a Jay O’Brien pass from the left-wing and collected on the goal line at the blocker side of Altman before sending a pass to the glove side as Weight slapped in his 10th goal of the season to give the Vees a 2-0 lead while on the man advantage.
The second period saw the Wild get back in the hockey game with a goal at the 6:58 mark of the middle stanza that scratched a lot of heads for the Vees. Tyler Young went hard to the goal on the right-wing, knocking down Perets with the puck sliding to the middle of the ice as Nick Cafarelli potted into the open goal as Perets could not slide to get in front of the shot. The goal stood and cut the deficit in half as the Vees lead was 2-1.
Wenatchee came back and tied the game just 1:02 later with Quinn Emerson evening the score. Emerson raced into the offensive zone and took a shot from the slot that was stopped by Perets with the Wild forward converting on his own rebound to tie the game at 2-2 at the 8:00 mark of the second period.
The Vees got back to pressuring the Wild and took their lead back at the 13:01 mark of the middle stanza as Niedermayer made a terrific play to get around a Wild defender at the top of the point and bring the puck to the right side. The Vees forward made his way to the front of the goal before beating Altman through the legs for his fifth goal of the season and a 3-2 Vees advantage.
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In the third period, Steve Holtz played a midpoint pass for O’Brien in the left-wing face-off circle as he corralled the puck in the circle and sniped a shot over the blocker side shoulder of Altman with traffic in front for his 14th goal of the season to give the Vees a 4-3 lead at the 15:03 mark of the final period.
Wenatchee pulled their goaltender with just over a minute left in the contest as David Silye poked the puck away from the Wild defender at the midpoint and banked a pass off the right-wing boards as he skated onto the puck and found the back of the net for his sixth goal of the season to ice a 5-3 Vees victory with 26 seconds remaining.
Yaniv Perets turned aside 29 of the 32 shots he faced in his 10th victory of the season in between the pipes while Noah Altman turned away 21 of the 25 shots thrown his way in his sixth loss of the season.
The Vees are up against the Salmon Arm Silverbacks on Wednesday night at the Shaw Centre.
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