Raiders, Bruins win with late goals

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
Warning! This is not a rerun!
Forward Ryan Harrison scored in the last two minutes of the third period to
give the Prince Albert Raiders a 3-2 WHL victory over the Kamloops Blazers
before 4,059 fans at Interior Savings Centre on Monday afternoon.
Warning! This is not a rerun!
Forward Scott McDonald scored in the last two minutes of the third period to
give the Chilliwack Bruins a 3-2 victory over the Kamloops Blazers before
4,119 fans at ISC on Saturday night.
No, this is not a rerun . . . but it’s an old, old act.
The Blazers’ weekend, which got off to such a promising start with a 4-1
thrashing of the visiting Prince George Cougars on Friday turned into a lost
weekend with a pair of late losses.
The Raiders, who were completely outplayed in the second period when they
were outshot 22-10 and horribly outchanced, erased a 2-1 deficit with two
third-period goals.
Forward Ryan McDonald beat goaltender Jon Groenheyde with a wrist shot
shortly after the expiration of a Kamloops power play to pull the visitors
even.
And then, at 18:04, Kamloops centre Alex Rodgers wasn’t able to prevent
Harrison from driving to the net. Centre Justin Bernhardt threw the puck
there from the right wing and it went off Harrison and past Groenheyde.
“Veteran guys make stupid mistakes,” Kamloops head coach Barry Smith said.
“We don’t get a save when we need one. We get pushed into our own net on the
third one. Veteran guy . . . a veteran guy has to do whatever. It’s the
young guys who aren’t hurting us.
“People say it’s youth. Our youth is playing right now. It’s the other guys
who have to figure it out.”
Winger Tyler Shattock gave the home side a 1-0 lead midway through the first
period, with Bernhardt, who had three points on the afternoon, tying it
early in the second.
Most of the middle period was played in the Raiders’ zone. But only Jimmy
Bubnick, with his ninth of the season, was able to beat goaltender Garrett
Zemlak, who finished with 44 saves, 21 of them in that frame.
“You have to bury your chances . . . chances don’t mean anything,” Smith
said. “We shot 10 of those right into his chest. We never got him out of his
comfort zone. He was always under control.”
That he was. Zemlak, a 19-year-old from Saskatoon, now is 5-0-0-0, with two
of those victories coming in shootouts and the other three in one-goal
games.
“We’ve had a lot of trouble keeping leads the last few games,” said Zemlak,
whose rebound control was exemplary, “and that’s kind of where I come in and
I’ve made some big saves. It all comes down to getting focused before games
and being a little bit lucky. I had a couple of posts today so I had some
luck on my side and the guys battled really hard in the third period.”
It’s an act that Bruno Campese, the Raiders’ general manager and head coach,
has seen too many times.
“It seems we can’t put 60 minutes together,” he said. “It seems there has
always been a 20-minute stretch when our goalies have really had to bail us
out. (Zemlak) did that again tonight. He bailed us out in the second period
and gave us a fighting chance to win it in the third.”
The Raiders appeared to break the 2-2 tie at 14:30 of the third period, less
than four minutes before Harrison scored. As they did for a lot of the
third, Prince Albert went hard to the net and someone — perhaps Bernhardt,
who was in tight — got the puck under or through Groenheyde and into the
net.
But referee Matt Kirk, who was behind the net in perfect position, ruled
that the whistle had gone before the puck crossed the goal line. Not even
that adversity could slow the Raiders, though.
“I thought we had battled hard,” Campese said. “What I’m really pleased
about is we showed some resilience through that and we went and got another
one.”
The victory, the Raiders’ third in five games on their B.C. Division swing,
improved their record to 6-5-0-0.
On Saturday, the Blazers outshot the Bruins 34-28, including 15-9 in the
third period, but weren’t able to solve goaltender Lucas Gore more than
twice.
Gore, a Kamloops native who turns 18 on Oct. 22, was especially strong in a
15-save third period that included a wonderful stop on Bubnick
from the left side at 9:28. At that point, the Blazers, trying to break a
2-2 tie, had outshot the visitors 11-2 in the period and 30-21 on the night.
“I felt really good after that save . . . and then we went down and scored,”
Gore said. “That was really exciting.”
It would be Chilliwack freshman Scott MacDonald, a 17-year-old from Surrey
who played last season with the KIJHL’s Nelson Leafs, who would get the
winner, stepping out from behind the Kamloops goal and jamming the puck past
goaltender Justin Leclerc with 88 seconds left to play.
Shayne Wiebe, who would leave Sunday’s game with a sprained ankle, and
Shattock scored for the Blazers, with Kevin Sundher and Brandon Manning
getting the Bruins’ other goals.
Gore, who had known since midweek that he would start this one, had a lot of
supporters in the crowd, including his folks, Aruna and David, who were
there on their son’s treat. But everyone else was on their own hook.
“The (defencemen) did a pretty good job of keeping the shots where I could
see them,” said Gore, who played last season with the BCHL’s Vernon Vipers.
On Sunday, Gore stopped 34 shots as the Bruins (5-2-1-1) ran their winning
streak to three with a 2-1 shootout victory over the visiting Seattle
Thunderbirds.
JUST NOTES: The Blazers were 1-for-3 on the power play Sunday, while the
Raiders were 0-for-3. . . . On Saturday, Kamloops was 1-for-9; the Bruins
were 1-for-5. . . . D Garrett Thiessen, a former Blazer now with the
Raiders, tried to play with a badly bruised ankle but gave it up after
coughing up the puck to Bubnick on his goal. “He tried to play but it just
wasn’t working out,” Campese said. . . . The Prince George Cougars have sent
RW Dale Hunt, 18, home to await a trade. Hunt, the third overall pick in the
2005 bantam draft, was a healthy scratch here on Friday and again Saturday
in Kelowna.

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca