One goal in 61 minutes 21 seconds of hockey action.
That’s all it took for the Cranbrook Bucks to leapfrog the Prince George Spruce Kings into fourth place in the BCHL’s Interior Conference standings.
Noah Quinn scored the only goal of the game, 1:21 into overtime, to cinch a 1-0 victory for the Bucks Friday night in Cranbrook. Quinn lifted a shot in behind goalie Jordan Fairlie for his 13th of the season.
With that win, the Bucks improved to 16-10-2-0-0 for a .607 winning percentage, dropping the Spruce Kings (14-9-2-1-0, .596) into fifth place.
The Bucks outshot the visitors 31-24. Shots were even in overtime at one for each team. Nathan Airey picked up his third shutout of the season between the pipes for Cranbrook.
The Kings went 0-for-2 on the power play, while Cranbrook went scoreless on three extra-skater opportunities.
The Spruce Kings and Bucks meet again in a rematch tonight (6 p.m.) in Cranbrook. Prince George will then play its next three games on home ice at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena, starting with a Wednesday date with the West Kelowna Warriors.
LOOSE PUCKS: Former Spruce King goalie Evan DeBrouwer was selected NCAA Atlantic Hockey goalie of the month for December. After three seasons at Arizona State, DeBrouwer transferred this season to Bentley University, based in Waltham, Mass. The 24-year-old native of Blenheim, Ont., backed the Falcons to two-game sweep of Mercyhurst, Dec. 3-4, allowing just one even-strength goal in the series while compiling a .944 save percentage. Bentley ended the calendar year on a five-game winning streak and during that span DeBrouwer posted a 1.20 goals-against average and .961 save percentage. He played one season in the BCHL for the Nanaimo Clippers before he was traded to the Spruce Kings in June 2017. That following season he put up a 2.24 goals-against average, .920 save rate and had three shutouts as he led the Spruce Kings to the Fred Page Cup BCHL final in April 2018.
