Quesnel Thunder did what they needed to do on Wednesday night (March 21) when they knocked off Coquitlam 8-2 in Midget Tier 2 Provincial action.
The hard-fought victory moved the home-town team a step closer to the championship game tonight (March 22) at West Fraser Centre starting at 7:30 p.m.
To make that happen, the Thunder has to beat Fort St. John in the final game of the round-robin tournament, which starts at 1:30 p.m.
Quesnel and area residents will want to make that game to cheer on the boys. They definitely get some extra jump in their strep when the crowd gets loud.
The Thunder got the first goal when they charged the Coquitlam net right off the drop of the puck.
There was a scrum in front of the visitors’ backup goalie and the Quesnel forwards whacked the puck past him with 28 seconds gone on the clock – Kaden Merritt scored with assists going to Mike Wright and Leif Scott.
However, Coquitlam roared back and really put the pressure on the home-town boys who seemed to lapse back into a flat game – like they were skating in sand.
The visitors buzzed around the Quesnel net, and if it wasn’t some spectacular saves by Jakob Drapeau (tourney MVP?), the score could have easily been 3-1 for Coquitlam.
The Thunder were getting bumped around and losing the battle of the hits in the early going.
Coquitlam knotted the score on an unassisted power-play goal at 6:54 of the first period.
Quesnel head coach Gord Salmons wasn’t happy with his boys start.
“We let them score a power-play goal when we let a guy come in the back door.
“We had a really good chat with them in the first intermission and then they turned things around in the second period.
The Thunder got two unanswered goals in the second – Spencer Dent at 6:39 (Michael Greenwood, Jacque Gilkerson) and Wright at 1:04 (Dyson Leneve, Cameron Hender).
There was a definite momentum shift as the local boys started making some big hits and were grinding Coquitlam’s short bench down – they also had a couple of boys nursing ankle injuries.
At the beginning of the third period, Thunder DJ Sauve took a hard shot between the pads and the pants beside his knee and was down on the ice for a few minutes before being helped off the ice.
Salmons says he was walking it off towards the end of the game.
“Hopefully, he gets some ice on it tonight and, hopefully, he’s OK to go tomorrow.
“We need him. He’s a really strong penalty killer for us.
The third period was all Quesnel as they dominated every aspect of the game, scoring five goals, winning all the battles on the boards and controlling the boards and checking, checking and checking some more.
Scorers: Leneve (Greenwood, Dent); Merritt (Sam Inwood); Stefan Tipold (Gilkerson); Thomas Bubera (Justin Salmons, Colby Couturier); and Merritt (Scott).
Coquitlam notched a power-play goal.
Quesnel took 10 penalties for 22 minutes and Coquitlam had four for eight minutes in the sin bin.
Salmons says it was a great third period.
“We started winning the races to the pucks and winning the battles on the boards. It was the key we talked about all year – win the races, win the battles and win the games.
“The third line was huge as they scored three or four goals for us tonight.”
