Saturday 1 November 2014

Recap: Tri City 1 - Victoria 4

Axel Blomqvist scored twice the lead the Victoria Royals (9-7-1-0, 16pts) past the visiting Tri City Americans 4-1 on Saturday night.

The Royals take the first of back to back games on the Island, with the second a 1pm Sunday matinee.

Victoria used a pair of power play goals, while getting stellar penalty killing in the form of blocked shots and netminding from Coleman Vollrath to improve to 3-1 on their 5 game homestand.

Tri City (8-8, 15pts) has now lost 4 straight games, scoring just 2 goals in that span.

The Royals killed off a 1:50, 5 on 3 Americans power play just a few minutes into the first.

“I think you have to give our goaltender and penalty killers huge credit tonight because that was really the difference in the game…you look at 2 minutes into the game and you look at defining moments, that probably was one of them.” – Royals Head Coach Dave Lowry

Victoria shut down all 4 Tri City man advantages on the night, while going 2 for 4 themselves.  The Royals have now scored a power play goal in 6 straight games.

Vollrath earned his 8th win with 20 saves and was named 3rd star, while his counterpart Eric Comrie, who will perform for Team WHL at the Subway Super Series, drops to 6-6 on the year after allowing 3 goals on 23 shots.

Austin Carroll and Maxwell James exchanged first period goals, just 1:40 apart.  Carroll remains 2nd in the league in goals with 11.

Blomqvist, the number 1 star, notched the lone second period goal, before adding his 7th on the power play in the third to give the Royals a 3-1 lead.

“With the big man skating and managing the puck and going to the net, he’s hard to stop…” said Lowry about Blomqvist.

Logan Fisher added and empty netter with over 2 minutes to goal for the insurance marker.

2nd star, Brandon Magee and Travis Brown both added a pair of assists.  Magee extends his point streak to 5 games (1g 7a) and 8pts, Carroll is also on a 5 game point streak, with 7 points (2g 5a).  Blomqvist has points in 6 games collecting 10 points (6g 4a).  The line of Magee, Blomqvist and Brandon Fushimi had 5 points combined.

Victoria pulls 3 points ahead of Tri City in the West and into 3rd spot in the Conference.  The Royals have won 7 of their past 10 games, and improve to 5-2-1-0 on home ice.

Not dressed due to injury was forward Tyler Soy, Dante Hannoun, defenseman Ralph Jarratt and netminder Evan Smith.

- Marlon Martens

Tri-City Americans 1 at Victoria Royals 4 - Status: Final
Saturday, November 1, 2014 - Save-On-Foods Memorial Arena - Victoria, BC

Tri-City 1 0 0 - 1
Victoria 1 1 2 - 4

1st Period-
1, Victoria, Carroll 11 (Magee, Walker), 16:06 (PP).
2, Tri-City, James 1 (Hillis), 17:46.

Penalties-Skapski Vic (high sticking), 2:36; Crunk Vic (high sticking), 2:46; Skapski Vic (tripping), 6:02; Magee Vic (cross checking), 8:24; Vickerman T.c (hooking), 10:57; Wotherspoon T.c (roughing), 13:46; Nagy Vic (roughing), 13:46; Bowles T.c (hooking), 14:05; Wotherspoon T.c (cross checking), 15:51.

2nd Period-
3, Victoria, Blomqvist 6 (Magee, Fushimi), 1:05.

Penalties-No Penalties

3rd Period-
4, Victoria, Blomqvist 7 (Hicketts, Brown), 2:52 (PP).
5, Victoria, Fisher 3 (Brown), 17:45 (EN).

Penalties-Topping T.c (interference), 2:33; Hillis T.c (major-fighting), 8:37; Kanzig Vic (major-fighting), 8:37; Playfair T.c (unsportsmanlike cnd.), 16:34; Ibragimov Vic (unsportsmanlike cnd.), 16:34; Playfair T.c (roughing), 20:00; Ibragimov Vic (roughing, roughing), 20:00.

Shots on Goal-
Tri-City 6-9-6-21.
Victoria 8-7-9-24.

Power Play Opportunities-
Tri-City 0 / 4;
Victoria 2 / 4.

Goalies-
Tri-City, Comrie 6-6-0-0 (23 shots-20 saves).
Victoria, Vollrath 8-6-1-0 (21 shots-20 saves).

A-4,004
Referees-Jeff Ingram (82), Dexter Rasmussen (25).
Linesmen-Blake Copeland (95), Riley Friesen (76).