The Chilliwack Chiefs were blanked 4-0 by a division rival on home ice Saturday night, losing 4-0 at Prospera Centre to the Langley Rivermen.
The Chiefs turned in a listless effort against their familiar foes, dropping further into the basement of the Mainland division. Chilliwack fell to 7-16-1-2, losing a chance to gain ground on the fourth place Surrey Eagles.
The Rivermen tagged the Chiefs for two goals in period one.
Nathan Craft got Langley on the board at 8:21, scoring his 11th of the year shorthanded. The Kitimat native sniped a shot from the top of the left faceoff circle, beating Chiefs keeper Spencer Tremblay over the blocker.
The visitors doubled their lead at 11:35 on a goal by Matt Ustaski. Gage Torrel took a shot from right hash-marks that Tremblay kicked out to the left. The goalie couldn’t recover quick enough to keep Ustaski’s sharp-angle shot from finding twine.
The Rivermen out-shot the Chiefs 17-9 through 20 minutes and kept pouring it on in period two.
At the 5:37 mark, James Robinson worked the puck behind the Chilliwack net and found Will Cook uncovered in front.
Cook took the pass and lifted a short-side shot over Tremblay’s shoulder for his sixth of the year and a 3-0 Langley lead.
The Rivermen got their second shorthanded goal of the game less than a minute later, with Mitch McLain sneaking behind Chiefs D-men Kiefer McNaughton and Carter Cochrane to slip a backhand shot past Tremblay.
The period ended with a fight.
Chilliwack’s Shay Laurent and Langley’s Jakob Reichert dropped the mitts with 35.7 seconds left, trading right-handing bombs as they danced from behind the Chiefs net to the left faceoff dot.
Shots on goal through 40 minutes favoured Langley 27-20.
The Chiefs threw defensive caution to the wind in the final 20, flinging everyone forward in search of a goal. The result was a shooting gallery around Tremblay. The Chilliwack keeper had 13 pucks sent his way in period three, including several odd-man and bang-bang chances.
His Langley counterpart, Brock Crossthwaite, led a boring life.
With his defencemen keeping everything to the outside, the Ontario native faced seven third period shots, and 27 overall, recording an easy shutout.
The three stars were Cook (first), Ustaski (second) and Crossthwaite (third).
The Fortis BC Energy Player of the Game was Andrew Silard.
The announced attendance was 1,705.
