Blazers trip 'Tips

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
The fourth line provided the spark that allowed the Kamloops Blazers to
torch the opposition Wednesday night.
The Blazers eventually beat the Everett Silvertips, 4-3, but it took a
shootout to decide the WHL game before 4,290 fans at Interior Savings
Centre.
Kamloops forwards C.J. Stretch and Kenton Dulle scored in the circus, while
only left-winger Tyler Maxwell was able to do the same for the visitors.
When Kamloops goaltender Justin Leclerc got a piece of right-winger Kellan
Tochkin’s shot and the puck glanced off a post, this one was over.
The Blazers had trailed 3-1 with 11 minutes left in the third period. And
considering that the Silvertips have a well-deserved reputation as a team
that defensively is able to keep the lid on the cookie jar, well, it looked
like this one was over.
But Blazers right-winger Scott Wasden pulled his club to within one by
lifting a backhand shot over goaltender Thomas Heemskerk as a Kamloops power
play expired at 9:38 of the third period.
Shortly thereafter, Kamloops head coach Barry Smith turned loose his grind
line — Jake Trask between Brett Lyon and Cole Grbavac — and it went out and
put in perhaps the team’s best shift of the night.
“I told those guys in there, ‘I need you to do something. I need you to go
out and play and I’m going to play four lines no matter what happens.’ And
we did,” Kamloops head coach Barry Smith said.
As for that one particular shift, Smith added: “It got the other guys fired
up. They kept them in there and they wore them down and that’s when the
tables started to turn. Then the ice really tilted the other way.”
Moments after those three left the ice, Everett defenceman Graham Potuer
took a delay-of-game penalty for lofting the puck in the crowd from his
defensive zone.
And, just 48 seconds later, left-winger Shayne Wiebe potted his team-leading
24th goal of the season, playing the waiting game until Heemskerk went down
and then lifting a backhand from the right side into the yawning net.
Leclerc also had a hand in forcing the overtime. He finished with 26 saves,
none larger than the two he made off Maxwell late in the period, the second
of which was a diving left-to-right sprawling stop.
The veteran goaltender was solid in the shootout, too, as he won his fourth
straight circus appearance.
Left-winger Dan Iwanski and centre Byron Froese gave Everett a 2-0 lead
before the first period was 10 minutes old, with Dulle getting his 21st to
pull the Blazers to within one before the period ended.
Captain Zack Dailey restored Everett’s two-goal lead at 12:28 of the second
period. It would be Everett’s only power-play goal in seven opportunities.
“We got behind the 8-ball a little bit, but we stuck to it,” Smith said. “We
talked about being a good team and sticking to our system and playing
through it no matter what happened. And we did.
“In the third period, we said we were going with four lines. Everybody is
going to play. And they did.
“We said this is our barn, enough excuses, enough talking about it, just get
it done. And we did it.”
JUST NOTES: Referees Brett Iverson and Sean Raphael gave the Blazers eight
of 13 minors and two of four majors. Tochkin was slapped with the game’s
lone misconduct following the shootout. . . . Dulle is 3-for-6 in shootouts
this season, while Stretch is 5-for-8. . . . RW Jimmy Bubnick, the Blazers’
third shooter, hit the cross-bar behind Heemskerk, who stopped 31 shots
through OT. . . . D Alex Theriau, who was acquired by Everett from the
Lethbridge Hurricanes in the Kyle Beach deal in January, was a healthy
scratch for a second straight game. Theriau, 16, was the sixth overall
selection in the 2007 bantam draft.
gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca