Salmon Arm, B.C. – The Salmon Arm Silverbacks welcomed in the Spruce Grove Saints to Rogers Rink for the first time in franchise history.
A scoreless first period, even though the Silverbacks had extended opportunities. Within the first six seconds of the game, the Silverbacks would head to the powerplay for four minutes with Ryan Harvey getting a double minor high sticking penalty. In the final two minutes of the opening frame, Ryan Johnstone would catch a Silverback with a knee and would get a five minute major and a game misconduct. The shots were even 7-7.
Breaking the goose egg, the Silverbacks get on the board in the second. At the six minute mark, the Captain, Maddux Martin streaks up the left wing with room and rifles one from the top of the faceoff dot perfectly in the top corner to grab the lead, 1-0, with his team leading 12th goal of the season. Starting to pull away with offensive pressure, the Silverbacks lead the shot total in the middle frame, 11-7.
Potting two more goals, the Silverbacks take full control to win the game in the third. Within the first five minutes, Patrick Raftery takes a centering feed from Maxime Lafond, who made is BCHL debut, and made no mistake, snapping it to the twine, making it 2-0. Coming out of the BCHL media timeout, the Silverbacks are on the powerplay after Josh Polak takes an interference penalty. On the man-advantage, Riley Ashe hammers home his sixth goal of the season, setting a new BCHL career high, to extend the lead, 3-0. The final 10 minutes of the game was busy for the referees with a total of eight penalties handed out, two of which being misconducts.
Ryan Grout got his third shutout of the season, stopping 19/19.
(Photo credit: Kristal Burgess)
