Blazers win in shootout

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
C.J. Stretch said the glove side was open. He was correct.
Stretch, a 19-year-old centre with the Kamloops Blazers, scored the only goal of the shootout Wednesday night as the home side scored an improbable 4-3 WHL victory over the Vancouver Giants before 4,114 fans at Interior Savings Centre.
That is the smallest regular-season home crowd since 4,112 fans watched the Blazers beat the Spokane Chiefs 8-1 on Oct. 11, 1993.
For the first 20 minutes, the Blazers didn’t belong on the same ice surface as the Giants. From that point on, the Blazers were the better team as the Giants self-destructed, taking too many penalties and becoming far too concerned with the state of the officiating.
How poorly did the Blazers play in the first period? Well, they gave up three odd-man breaks in the game’s first five minutes, during which time they were outshot 6-0.
What? You want more?
By the 10:24 mark, the Giants had a 2-0 lead, on goals from forwards James Wright and Evander Kane, and held a 13-0 edge in shots on goal.
“I thought we were ready to go. I did,” Kamloops head coach Barry Smith said. “I thought everybody was prepared. But we wanted to go east-west. We weren’t competing on pucks. We weren’t skating. We weren’t moving our feet. We were waiting for stuff to happen instead of making it happen.”
Smith said the arrivals of right-winger Tyler Shattock and defenceman Nick Ross from NHL camps may have played a role in the early going.
“In think part of it was, you get a couple of guys back and everybody’s going, ‘Oh, we’re that much better.’ They’re young kids and that’s what they start to think about.
“But it’s still a chipping game. If you do that early, you back teams off and then all the other stuff will happen as time goes on.”
Stuff did happen as this one wore on. But for the longest time it didn’t look good for the home boys.
When forward Casey Pierro-Zabotel scored at 4:09 of the second period, the Giants had a 3-1 lead and, well, the boo-birds were starting to hum.
But the Giants, who showed an uncharacteristic lack of discipline, skated into penalty trouble and got burned by two power-play goals late in the period.
First, the Blazers were presented with a two-man advantage when forward Lance Bouma was penalized after crashing the net and bowling over goaltender Jon Groenheyde and then talked his way into another minor, and defenceman Craig Schira was nailed for tripping.
Slovakian centre Dalibor Bortnak responded with his first WHL goal, going five-hole at 14:14.
Then, at 19:01, with Kane off for hooking, Slovakian defenceman Michal Siska beat Giants goalie Jamie Tucker, who was struggling with traffic, with a screened shot from the point.
Both goaltenders — Groenheyde, who finished with 30 saves and kept his mates in it early, and Tucker, who stopped 20 shots — were solid from that point.
Come the shootout, five skaters shot and five shooters failed, which brought Stretch into the spotlight.
“We were watching the other two and the glove was open so we wanted to shoot on that,” said Stretch, who had 11 goals in 65 games last season. “Everyone was telling me to shoot so I looked for it and got it.”
As the puck hit the twine, the Blazers poured off the bench.
“I wanted to get Jon a win,” Stretch said, referring to Groenheyde, a 17-year-old freshman from Surrey who was making his second WHL start.
Groenheyde may have wanted the first goal back — Wright floated one past him from the high slot — but he was terrific after that.
“I think it hit a skate,” Groenheyde said of Wright’s goal. “It hit something for sure. It was going pretty quick and it slowed down. You think about it for a couple of seconds but you know that there’s more coming so you can’t think about it too much.”
He was able to put it behind him on a day when he learned that he will be staying with the Blazers.
Goaltender James Priestner, 17, who backed up here last season, has returned home to Edmonton as he awaits a trade. The Blazers are in talks with at least two teams, believed to be the Brandon Wheat Kings and Tri-City Americans.
“Obviously, I’m really excited to be here and officially be part of the Kamloops Blazers,” Groenheyde said. “I’m really happy.”
Left-winger Shayne Wiebe, with his fourth goal in three games, had the Blazers’ first goal.
“I’ll give it to our guys,” Smith said. “They got emotionally up again. Some yelling and some screaming does it but you can’t do this every night.”
All three of the Blazers’ games have been decided in overtime or a shootout.
The Blazers (2-0-0-1), with five points from three games, woke up this morning atop the Western Conference, one point ahead of the Prince George Cougars (2-0-0-0). The Cougars, however, are in the No. 8 slot in the CHL’s Top 10.
Prince George plays Friday in Vancouver where the Giants (1-1-0-0) are certain to be a little surly.
JUST NOTES: That Friday game will the Giants’ home-opener. . . . D Craig Schira, 20, is wearing the ‘C’ for Vancouver in the absence of D Jon Blum, who is in camp with the NHL’s Nashville Predators. . . . Kelowna Rockets head coach Ryan Huska and assistant coach Ryan Cuthbert were in attendance. The Rockets are here Friday night.
gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca