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| Anthem in Portland Wednesday night |
Brandon Magee scored two goals and Ben Walker added another for the Royals, who are now winless in 5 and have suffered their eighth loss in nine games. They fall to the 8th and final playoff spot with a record of (13-21-2-2).
Royals Assistant Coach Enio Sacilotto's comments following the loss:
They’ll meet again here in Portland Friday night with a 6:45 pregame show on the Zone at 91.3.
Head Coach & GM of the Royals, Marc Habscheid's thoughts; (taken from the Times Colonist)
“We had turkey legs for the first 10 minutes, then we got it going. In the second, they brought their game a little more, for sure,”
“We were hanging around and then the two quick ones put us in a difficult situation, no question. We got outworked, and we’ve talked since Day 1, that that has to be the mantra of our team. One thing you can control is how hard you work and how hard you compete. We don’t have enough guys who work as hard as they should.”
1st PERIOD: Defenseman Joe Morrow opened the scoring off a rush with a wrist shot glove side on Hamilton 2:02 in. Brandon Magee’s backhander tied things up a one just as their power play expired. Steven Hodges would crank one off the post as the Royals took over the ice for stretches. With just under 2 minutes left however, Brad Ross would extend his goal scoring streak to 6 games, poking in a loose puck from underneath Hamilton’s glove. Portland peppered Victoria with 20 shots and take a 2-1 lead after 20.
2nd PERIOD: Ty Rattie would miss a penalty shot 1:11 into the second, but Portland would continue to pour it on. Chase DeLeo and Taylor Peters would open a 3 goal lead scoring 22 seconds apart, but Brandon Magee would reply with his second of the night on the power play just over 2 minutes later. Victoria did not allow the number one power play in the league a single oppportunity until late in the second, but Taylor Leir would make them pay at the 18:41 mark to take a 5-2 lead to the 3rd.
The Winterhawks who take the most shots in the league on average, fired another 22 on Hamilton in the second. Brandon Ross was stopped by Hamilton on a breakway 4:55 in the middle frame along with Joey Baker at the 7:22 mark.
3rd PERIOD: Royals rookie Ben Walker redirected a Jamie Crooks pass out of the air at the 3:37 mark to bring them within two. Brad Ross who was denied twice on breakaways one timed a backhander past Hamilton on the power play at 5:24 to give Portland a 3 goal cushion - which proved insurmountable. Shots were 10 each in the final frame. The Winterhawks take game 1 of the 4 game series, last year the clubs split the meetings.
STATS: Victoria went 1/6 on the power play, while Portland was 2/3. The Winterhawks outshot the Royals 54-32. Keith Hamilton stops 48 of 54, while Mac Carruth wins his 21st with 29 saves.
3 STARS:
1. POR - 7 Joseph Morrow
2. POR - 18 Brad Ross
3. POR - 9 Chase De Leo
MULTIPLE POINTS: Joe Morrow with 3 points, and 2 point nights for DeLeo, Leier, Swenson, and Brad Ross who extends his goal scoring streak to 6 games (8+2=10 points). Brandon Magee scored his 9th and 10th goals of the season. Kevin Sundher's two helpers extends his point streak to 8 games (3+9=12 points). Jesse Pauls picked up an assist and now has 5 points in his last 3 games.
MISSING: Keegan Kanzig is playing at the U-17 for Team Pacific, and so is Winterhawks forward Nicolas Petan. Sven Bartschi is representing Switzerland at the World Juniors while average 2 points per game with Portland.
