PHOTO: PURE LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY
Salmon Arm, B.C. — A third period power play goal from the captain, a shootout goal from Carter Loney and a stellar performance from Riley Kohonick gave the Backs a 2-1 shootout victory over the Vernon Vipers on Saturday night at Kal Tire Place.
The Backs are now 3-6-1 in the Okanagan Cup, while the Vipers drop to 3-4-3.
GAME SUMMARY
It was a tight opening 20 minutes of play, with both teams getting some chances, but both goalies — Riley Kohonick and Koen MacInnes — shut the door. The Backs held a slight lead in shots on goal after one period, at 8-7.
Salmon Arm was also able to draw momentum at the tail end of the frame when they killed off a 5-on-3 that spilled over into the second period thanks to some big blocks and hard work from Lucas Matta and Simon Tassy.
The Silverbacks were called for their third straight penalty just over seven minutes into the second period, and just 16 seconds after killing it off, the Vipers found the back of the net. Rookie forward Luke Pakulak shovelled home a backhand on a rebound that snuck through the five hole of Kohonick for his first in the BCHL.
After 40 minutes of play, the Vipers held a 1-0 edge on the scoreboard and 15-10 lead in shots on goal.
The third period saw the Vipers shut things down fairly well, as they didn’t giving the Backs much to work with, however, Salmon Arm broke through on a power play with 6:29 remaining. Simon Tassy dropped a pass to the point for Hunter Sansbury, whose wrist shot found its way through traffic off of Drew Bennett’s shin pad and past the glove side of MacInnes to even the score.
It was just the Backs second power play opportunity of the contest.
Vernon generated some good lucks before regulation came to a close, but Kohonick continued to shut the door.
Sixty minutes wouldn’t settle anything, and as it turned out, neither did 3-on-3 overtime, so off to a shootout the game went.
After each team missed on their first opportunity (Simon Tassy for the Backs and Will Arquiett for the Vipers), Carter Loney whipped a wrist shot over the blocker of MacInnes to the top corner to give the Backs the 1-0 shootout advantage.
Riley Kohonick would then stop both Josh Prokop and Cam MacDonald to ensure the 2-1 victory.
For the full boxscore, click here.
THEY SAID IT
“We talked last night about the mental urgency and the physical urgency and matching it today and I thought that we did a really good job of that. Our first period was indicative of that. We just really came out and brought a lot of intensity. I don’t know if it was the most entertaining game for the fans to watch, but I think both coaches would have been really happy with how their teams played. It was a lot like yesterday — a very structured game. There wasn’t a lot of space out there. That first period just seemed like it flew by. There wasn’t a whole lot of action in terms of shots on goal and chances, but both teams were very well positioned and it was nice to see our guys be able to commit to that for a full 60 and get rewarded with that late goal to send it to overtime.” – Asst. Coach Carter Cochrane
SILVERBACK TOP PERFORMER
RILEY KOHONICK
“It’s really great to see him start to take his form here. I think he’s benefitting from the way our team is playing in front of him and our guys are getting more and more confident in him every day, which is just allowing them to work together and freely. I think the one thing you really noticed with him today was his puck playing ability. The way pucks were getting dumped in to him — we’ve been working on in all week in practice — and the way that he was able to work with our ‘D’, it just led to us having a lot fo clean exits off of it…Overall just a really strong performance from Koho and he was obviously rock solid in the shootout too.”
WHAT’S NEXT
The Silverbacks wrap up the round robin portion of the Okanagan Cup next Friday and Saturday with a home-and-home against the West Kelowna Warriors. Following that, the semifinals will take place, with first place taking on fourth and second place facing off against third.
Fans can stream all games on HockeyTV, plus there will be a free radio stream available as well at mixlr.com/sa-silverbacks.
