Warriors survive ugly start
About 22 minutes of good hockey was all the West Kelowna Warriors were able to muster up Saturday night.
On this night, they are thankful that was just enough.
The Warriors showed little fight over much of the first 40 minutes and found themselves down 3-0 to a tenacious Spruce Grove Saints team
“We just didn’t work, we didn’t work hard, we didn’t compete, didn’t do the things that we do and then we decided to do it for a period and we got lucky,” said head coach Simon Ferguson.
“I didn’t think we were going to be able to pull that out. I thought we could have had one more goal so it would have been easier.”
The big line of Declan Waddick, Josh Polak and Chris Battaini did all the damage for the Saints accounting for all three of their goals and, if it wasn’t for some outstanding work from Angelo Zol, that trio could have had a few more.
The Warriors finally found some offence late in the second when Jace Rask tipped home Blake Burke’s shot just as a Spruce Grove penalty was about to expire.
That woke up the Warriors and their fans. It was a different team in the third.
The pressure finally paid off when Ruslan Jamaldinov wired a shot past Ryan De Kok on a power play at 8:26 to bring them to within one.
It looked as if Dylan Krayer had tied it minutes later when he batted a rebound from a Natan Ethier shot out of mid air. After a lengthy review, the officials determined the puck went off Krayer’s glove and not his stick and disallowed the goal.
With less than three minutes left and a faceoff in the Saints end, the Warriors called time out and brought Zol to the bench for a sixth attacker.
They won the draw, worked the puck along the left wall, and eventually got in to Olivier Chan in the slot who ripped a shot high over the outstretched glove of De Kok.
The wide-open overtime produced plenty of chances, but both goaltenders were equal to the task. Zol made two key stops, including a pad save on a two-on-one, while Jamaldinov was robbed twice from in close.
Waddick opened the shootout with a goal before Ethier on a beautiful backhand deke and Jamaldinov high glove side sealed it for the Warriors.
Ferguson said it was good the game didn’t hinge on the non-goal call.
“We didn’t deserve it anyway.
“That would have been the hockey gods and I don’t know why the hockey gods gave it to us, but maybe we worked that hard in the third period and we had some guys that really put it on the line and played the way we needed to play.
“It’s a good group when we do that. We have arguably five top guys out right now, so finding a way when you are down bodies…it’s going to happen in playoffs so it’s good we were able to figure it out.”
The win officially clinched the Interior West division title and, with Cowichan losing again Saturday, moved them to within a single point of the overall points lead.
The Warriors are off until next weekend when they hit the road for games in Sherwood Park and Spruce Grove. Six of their final seven are now away from Royal LePage Place.
