Mason Richey already showed the Vancouver Northeast Chiefs his playmaking skills with three assists in the opening game of the BC Hockey Major Midget League semifinal playoff series.
On Saturday, given a shot at moving his Cariboo Cougars into the league championships series for the fourth consecutive year, the 17-year-old Cariboo Cougars left winger did not let that opportunity pass by.
And what a shot it was.
He finished off the Chiefs with a bullet blast that gave goalie Michael Harroch no time to react before the puck found the short-side top corner of the net, 4:17 into overtime - the clincher in a 4-3 victory.
It was the second goal of the game for Richey, who had three assists in Friday’s 5-2 win over the Chiefs to start the best-of-three series. The Terrace minor hockey product led the Cougars in scoring with 64 points in 40 games, including 26 goals and signed for next season to play in the BCHL for the West Kelowna Warriors.
“He’s been doing since he was 15 years old in this league, if there’s a guy you want in the slot with the puck on his stick it’s him,” said Cougars head coach Tyler Brough. “It couldn’t happen to a better guy, he’s our captain and he works for what he gets and to me he’s the real deal. He’s a leader.”
Ryan Buchan made eight saves for his first BCHMML playoff win. The Cougars outshot their opponents 29-11. Buchan was called into service for his first playoff start when Marcus Allen strained his knee while making a save with five minutes left in Friday’s game.
“Any time you don’t have Marcus Allen in the net you’re downgrading and Ryan did a good job today, he stepped in in a very tough situation and did what he had to do,” said Brough. “They scored on two pucks that he had no chance on. He doesn’t make the saves that Marcus makes, that are out of this world sometimes.
“We locked down, we didn’t give them much and that was our gameplan and it ends in a second-round win, putting us to the final four years in a row.”
The low shot total for the Chiefs was a reflection of how well the Cougars played in their own end, rarely allowing the Chiefs to get close to the net with the puck on their sticks. The forwards blocked shots and closed off the shooting lanes and the defencemen played it tough in front of the crease and used their bodies as battering rams whenever they had the chance and they were effective at clearing the zone with passes that were rarely intercepted. Consequently, the Cougars held a wide edge in puck possession time.
“We just wanted to get the job done tonight, we worked hard for it,” Cougars 16-year-old defenceman Matthew Marotta, who was solid in both games in the series. “You saw what they did last weekend, they’re a hard-working team and you don’t want to give them any momentum, so it was good we took care of it tonight.
“Marcus is obviously an unreal goalie and you never want to see him go down but as a d-corps we wanted to rally around him and say we’re going to win with whoever’s in net and whatever we can do to help that we will. We’re rolling, we’re just full of momentum now. They got a couple of goals and we never got down on ourselves and we can fight through adversity with (Allen) going down.”
Richey opened the scoring with another hard blast in the first period after he was set up in front by linemate Craig MacDonald, the first of three assists for MacDonald in the game. The Chiefs caught a break 17 seconds later when a point shot from Jackson Murphy-Johnson deflected in off the skate of a Prince George defender standing in the slot.
Grady Thomas put the Cougars ahead with the only goal of the second period, scoring shorthanded after he stripped the puck at the Chiefs’ blueline from defenceman Zach Abenante, finishing with a backhand shot to beat Harroch.
Ten minutes into the third period, the Chiefs tied it with another deflected shot. Ryan Denney fired the puck from the blueline and it hit a stick and sailed up high, dropping in over Buchan’s shoulder.
Led by Riley Krane, who had two glorious shorthanded opportunities, the Cougars were dangerously offensive while killing their three penalties in the game, forcing Harroch to cover up in his crease.
Two minutes after Denney scored, Krane caught the Chiefs on a bad line change and skated in alone on the left wing to score the Cougars’ third goal at 12:24 of the third period. But less than two minutes later, on a delayed penalty to the Cougars, Chiefs defenceman James Bohm crept into the face-off circle and was in perfect position to one-time a cross-ice pass from Murphy-Johnson, which made overtime necessary.
“I thought we did OK, I thought we would come out a lot harder than we did, but late in the third period we made a push and got a couple good shots on net,” said Chiefs head coach Jamie Jackson. “In the overtime I thought we did OK again, we were competitive, but it didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to.”
The eighth-place Chiefs guaranteed the second-place Cougars could keep home-ice advantage throughout the league playoffs when they took out the regular-season champion Valley West Hawks in a three-game opening-round series.
“I think we surprised a lot of people with the Hawks series and that gave us some confidence coming in here,” said Jackson. “Cariboo, credit to them, they’re a good hockey team and they look like a team that could repeat.”
The Cougars will host the league championship series beginning on Friday at Kin 1 against either the Vancouver Northwest Giants or Fraser Valley Thunderbirds. The Thunderbirds beat the Giants 5-1 Saturday in Langley to force a deciding game Sunday at 2 p.m. The Giants were 4-3 winners Friday night.
The injury to Allen, who finished the season with a 23-4-3 record and a 2.32 goals-against average (second best in the league), is not considered serious and he is expected to return to the lineup for the league final.
Just five Cougars – Richey, Krane, Hunter Floris, Brandon Rowley and Brennan Malgunas, played on last year’s provincial champion Cougar team which beat the Greater Vancouver Canadians in a three-game final at Kin 1.
‘We’re all pretty ecstatic, we didn’t think even if we made it to the finals we would be here because we thought Valley West would win their way,” said Richey. “But now that we have the chance to win at home again we’re all happy about that.”
