Team Sites
Follow the BCHL
BCHL

Silverbacks Drop Okanagan Cup Opener

Salmon Arm, B.C. — The Salmon Arm Silverbacks lost 7-0 to the Penticton Vees on Friday night in the opening game of the Okanagan Cup.

GAME SUMMARY

The Silverbacks were energized to start the game and even hit the cross-bar just two minutes in courtesy defenceman Jagger Benson. Under five minutes later, Salmon Arm went on their first power play of the game, but ended up surrendering the game’s first goal. It was Penticton’s Tristan Amonte who got himself a shorthanded breakaway and finished on the backhand to open the scoring. Later in the period, Amonte led a 2-on-2 rush and fed a pass to the net that was unintentionally redirected past Backs goaltender Riley Kohonick to make the score 2-0.

Under four minutes into the second period, Vees newcomer Matteo Costantini chipped a quick pass in front of the net after following up on his own blocked shot, and Quinn Hutson swiped it home to make the score 3-0 for the Vees. A power play goal nine minutes later from Devlin O’Brien made it 4-0, after Luc Wilson found him in front the redirection.

In the third, goals from Jackson Niedermayer, Hutson and Drew Elser put the game out of reach.

Kohonick made 34 saves on the night, as the Silverbacks were out-shot 41-20.

For the full boxscore, click here.

THEY SAID IT

“Obviously it’s a tough way to start the exhibition season here. Definitely not what we were looking to do coming in, but at the end of the day, we’re blessed with a lot of time right now to fine tune some things and be able to get our game to where we want it to be when the games start for real. We’re using a lot of these games as measuring sticks to just see where our guys are at and then be able to kind of tweak and implement our systems as we go here. Definitely disappointed with the result today, but we’re more focused on the process than the results right now.” — Asst. Coach Carter Cochrane on Friday’s result

WHAT’S NEXT

The two clubs will go at it again on Saturday night at the same time and place: 6 p.m. at the South Okanagan Events Centre.

Fans can stream the game on HockeyTV.