Chiefs Make Birds Pay For Brief Lapse

South Island Thunderbirds, December 05, 2009

On Saturday afternoon at Cam Neely Arena in Maple Ridge, the South Island Thunderbirds matched up well against a strong Vancouver North East Chiefs team for about 55 minutes.  But the Birds made a few critical errors at the start of the second period and that was all the Chiefs needed to score three times in a two minute span, those three markers being the difference in a 5 – 2 final score.

The visitors started well, getting the game’s first goal in the second minute of the contest when rookie forward Dane Gibson knocked in a rebound from the doorstep after Mark Walton had set up Connor Krupa for the initial wrist shot from just right of the slot.  South Island had a couple of great chances to extend their lead as both Brandon Egli and Kyle Richter narrowly missed on a pair of 2 on 1 breaks.

The Chiefs came back to tie the game at 7:19 on their own 2 on 1, which was a real momentum changer as it came with Vancouver shorthanded and South Island applying pressure.  The Chiefs’ Michael Scobie picked up the puck in his own end and banked it past one T-Bird defenceman at the Chiefs’ blue line to create the chance.  He raced all the way into the Birds’ end and then fired a wrist shot that was stopped by South Island goaltender Nic Renyard.  Unluckily, the puck bounced off Renyard’s chest and then bounced off Vancouver’s Zack Henry and into the South Island net.

Vancouver came on stronger in the second half of the period and went ahead 2 – 1 with just under three minutes left on another mistake that involved an unlucky Birds’ bounce.  Renyard made a nice toe save off a low wrist shot from a Vancouver forward and the puck laid three feet in front of him.  In the scrum for the puck, a T-Bird forward got his stick on it and attempted to clear it out of harm’s way but the puck caromed off another Vancouver forward and bounced across the front of the net to Dustin Lebrun, who quickly wristed it into the open half of the net.

The real damage came in the first five minutes of the second period.  At 2:28, the T-Birds were killing a penalty and missed two great opportunities to send the puck down the ice.  On the second of those, Vancouver defenceman Taylor Young gloved the puck down at the blue line, then passed to Evan Campbell at the end line to Renyard’s left.  Campbell skated into the face-off circle, then fired a crisp wrist shot under the bar over Renyard’s glove to make the score 3 – 1.

One minute later, Adam Bartsch beat Renyard with another wrist shot on a 2 on 1 created after a turnover at the center line.  The ultimate back breaker came in just 55 more seconds when a seemingly innocent shot from just inside the blue line bounced in off someone in front of the net and, in the blink of an eye, the score was 5 – 1.

To the T-Birds’ credit, the team worked harder than ever and came back strong for the rest of the contest.  The team applied considerable pressure in the second half of the middle frame but could not beat Chiefs’ goalie, Matt Hewitt and went to the dressing room trailing 5 – 1, though obviously felt that they were playing better than that unflattering score would indicate.

The third period was all South Island and for a while it looked they might get back in the game.  The team took advantage of a 5 on 3 opportunity to score once and threatened to score again on the subsequent 5 on 4.  The goal came from Mark Walton who neatly backhanded in a rebound off a Garett Kemmler slap shot from the top of the right face-off circle at the 6:00 mark.

Despite applying more pressure and controlling the play for most of the final 14 minutes, the Thunderbirds could not beat Hewitt again to draw any closer.

The two teams play again on Sunday morning at 10:00 AM for the fourth and final time this season and South Island will hope to sustain their momentum from the latter half of Saturday’s game for a full 60 minutes in the rematch.  The Chiefs have now won all three of their games against the T-Birds, the last two by identical 5 – 2 scores.