The West Kelowna Warriors close out the regular season with two games on the road beginning with a trip to the Nicola Valley to take on the Merritt Centennials at the Nicola Valley Memorial Arena on Friday night.
Warriors vs. Centennials 2017/18 Schedule:
Saturday, September 16th @ Royal LePage Place (3-1 Warriors) (BOXSCORE)
Sunday, October 29th @ Nicola Valley Memorial Arena (5-1 Centennials) (BOXSCORE)
Friday, November 24th @ Royal LePage Place (7-2 Warriors) (BOXSCORE)
Friday, December 1st @ Nicola Valley Memorial Arena (7-4 Centennials) (BOXSCORE)
Saturday, February 3rd @ Royal LePage Place (6-3 Centennials) (BOXSCORE)
Friday, February 23rd @ Nicola Valley Memorial Arena (7:00 PM)
The Warriors and Centennials wrap up their season series on Friday with the Cents winning three of the five games in the season set including the latest coming early in February in a 6-3 loss for the Warriors on home ice. RJ Murphy, Chase Dubois and Ryan Steele found the back of the net for West Kelowna while Cole Demers turned aside 21 of the 27 shots he faced in the game in the defeat.
West Kelowna comes into Friday night with a 27-26-1-2 record and sit in 5th place in the Interior Division after a 7-6 overtime loss to the Wenatchee Wild on Wednesday night at Royal LePage Place in what was a bit of a crazy contest. The Warriors held a 4-2 lead through the first 40 minutes before Wenatchee came back with four goals in 3rd period to take the lead before West Kelowna scored twice in 35 seconds to tie the game with Wenatchee getting the winner in overtime. Ryan Steele and Parm Dhaliwal each scored twice in the game with Jared Marino and Michael Ryan adding singles in the game. Nik Amundrud stopped 30 of the 37 shots he faced in the overtime setback, his 16th of the season.
Warriors Leading Scorers:
Chase Dubois (20-37-57)
Jared Marino (21-32-53)
Ryan Steele (19-34-53)
RJ Murphy (20-24-44)
Michael Ryan (7-35-42)
The point streak continued in a large way for Warriors forward Ryan Steele, who collected a pair of goals and five points in the Warriors 7-6 overtime loss to the Wenatchee Wild. The Stratford, PEI native has collected 12 goals and 23 points during his 11-game point streak and now sits tied for second in team scoring with 53 points on the season. During the last 11 games, Steele has been a part of 23 of the Warriors 51 goals scored, which translates to a 45% rate.
Special teams played a big part in Wednesday night’s game and could be the same factor in tonight’s game with the Warriors power play striking twice in the contest. West Kelowna is up to 54 goals scored on the man advantage this season and ranks tied for 5th in the BCHL in that department with Parm Dhaliwal leading the way in power play goals on the Warriors roster with seven.
The Warriors will look to try and tie the season series with the Centennials in their sixth and final matchup of the regular season with Merritt winning three of the five meetings thus far. It’s been a home team series, for the most part, with the Warriors winning two of the three meetings at Royal LePage Place while the Centennials have won both games at the NMVA, outscoring the Warriors by a 12-5 margin.
The Merritt Centennials come into Friday night with a 24-26-2-4 record and sit in 6th place in the Interior Division, just three points behind the Warriors for the 5th place spot. Merritt has been red hot as of late, collecting points in each of their last six games including a victory on Thursday night against the Salmon Arm Silverbacks by a 6-1 score. Michael Van Unen scored twice in the game while Mathieu Gosselin, Jackson Munro, Matthew Kopperud and Brendan Schneider scored singles. Austin Roden turned aside 25 of the 26 shots in the game for his 12th win of the season.
Centennials Leading Scorers:
Henry Cleghorn (20-28-48)
Nicholas Wicks (12-34-46)
Zach Zorn (20-22-42)
Zach Court (11-30-41)
Tyrell Buckley (11-28-39)
The Cents have been playing some great hockey throughout the month of February with a record of 6-3-1-0 and have collected points in each of their last six games. During that stretch, the Centennials have outscored their opponents by a 22-10 margin including a power play that has dominated the opposition, going 12/27 over that span, a 44.4% operation rate.
Speaking of that power play, it’s been one of the biggest keys for the Centennials, scoring a goal on the man advantage in each of their last six games. After starting the season struggling to find the back of the net with an extra player on the ice, the Cents have turned that around to be the 4th best power play in the league at 21.3%. Mathieu Gosselin and Nicholas Wicks lead the way for Merritt in the power play goals category with seven while Tyrell Buckley leads the club with eleven power play assists.
Merritt sits 6th in the league in goals against and can attribute that, in large part, to their goaltenders as both Austin Roden and Jacob Berger have been outstanding this season. Roden, who started on Thursday, holds a .940 SV% in 21 games with the Centennials since being traded from the Nanaimo Clippers and is amongst the league leaders in that regard including a 4-0-1 record in his last five games to go along with a 1.16 GAA and a .957 SV% in that span.
The Warriors and Centennials are slated to drop the puck at 7:00 PM with the pre-game show going at 6:45 PM on the Warriors Internet Network and HockeyTV.com with the Voice of the Warriors, Trevor Miller. West Kelowna finishes their 2017/18 regular season schedule on Saturday night in Salmon Arm against the Silverbacks.
