Flyers 4 Generals 3 (OT)
It should come as no surprise that the Fort St. John Flyers and Bentley Generals are all tied up after two games in the McKenzie Cup senior AAA hockey playoff.
After all every time they meet, and that’s been often over the last five seasons, the Generals take the opening game of the best-of-five series with the Flyers storming back to win the second.
For 32 minutes Friday, it appeared that was scenario was going out the window as the Generals, who won the opening game 4-0 Thursday, held what appeared to be a comfortable 3-0 lead.
But the Flyers scored twice before the end of the middle stanza, added the tying goal 17 seconds into the third period, and got a power play marker from Rod Stevens on a tip in at 8:22 into the 10-minute first overtime period to pull out a 4-3 victory.
“We’ve been here before, now we have a series,” said Generals head coach Brian Sutter.
“Every time we play them here they win game one and we win game two,” said Flyers head coach Darrell Leahy. “It makes for a big game three.”
Special teams played a key role in the game. The Generals scored three times in the first period with the man advantage as Paul Cabana connected at 3:08, while two men up, and Braden Appleby tipped in a Jim Vandermeer shot at 11:38 and Sean Robertson deflected a Brandon Smith point shot at 14:02.
“Our power play put us up 3-0, but it turned out our power play let us down later in the game,” said Sutter. “They did a good job of taking away our points, but the forwards can do more to help out.”
It was the third period where the Generals could have regained control of the game with the man advantage as they had five power plays, but for the most part failed to generate even a good chance.
“After the first period our penalty kill took over,” said Leahy.
“You think that when you kill as many penalties as we did it would get better. Traditionally we have a good penalty kill.”
The Flyers also took advantage of their chances, as Todd Alexander and Chris Stevens, with a two-man advantage, scored in the second period on seven shots, then Tyrell Mason tied the game in the third when his screened point shot beat Generals goaltender Scott Galenza.
“They scored three goals and 12 shots and have only 18 overall, so generally we did a good job away from the puck,” said Sutter. “But we also had the puck twice on the winning goal and didn’t get it out.”
Leahy knew the two second-period goals were huge.
“We were able to get the puck to the net and a couple went in and the momentum started to switch a little,” he said. “
In the third period we had a couple of big hits and they started back peddling. Although the shots didn’t indicate it I thought we took over in the third period, then in the overtime we finally got a call.”
The Generals finished with 40 shots on Flyers goaltender Clayton Pool, who was especially outstanding in the second period to keep the game within reach.
“But a few of our top end guys didn’t give us enough,” added Sutter. “You watched it and they didn’t look good from where I was standing either.”
The game saw the Flyers take 19 minor penalties and a game misconduct while the Generals were assessed 11 minors, including two in the overtime.
Ten of the Fort St. John penalties, including the game misconduct for a hit from behind, came in the first period, which left Leahy anything but happy with the officiating.
“He was atrocious in the first period, as bad as I’ve ever seen,” he said. “He gave Mason an unsportsmanlike penalty when he was skating away. That’s just chicken (deleted).”
• The Generals apperared to score in the third period, but it was waved off when the referee indicated it hit the post . . . The third game goes tonight with the fourth game Sunday and the fifth, if necessary, Monday. All games are at 7 p.m. at the Arena.
drode@www.reddeeradvocate.com