Victoria Grizzlies rookie goalie Alec Dillon left town Saturday with the first shutout of his B.C. Hockey League career.
One shot made all the difference.
It was the only shot that kept another first-year BCHL goaltender from blanking the opposition for the first time. Somebody has to lose in a 1-0 game and Prince George Spruce Kings goalie Jesse Jenks drew the short straw.
The Grizzlies connected on their first power play of the game, seven minutes into the first period. Defenceman Jacob Kearley's point shot left centre Jesse Schwartz behind enemy lines with enough time to take two cracks at the rebound. Jenks got his toe on the first one but on Schwartz's second attempt he kicked the puck from his skate to his stick and went wide across the goalmouth to tuck it into the Kings' net.
"They're pretty good off the rush and my guys did a good job of not letting them set up in their zone and the shot blocks kept the shots down," said Dillon, 17, whose team outshot the Kings 29-28. "We won a lot of face-offs in our zone and that made a big difference."
The Spruce Kings were unable to dominate the ice like they did the previous night against Vernon and their scoring chances were much harder to come by. The Grizzlies are blessed with size and speed on the blueline with Kearley, Chris Albertini and Alex Adams all 200-pound-plus bruisers, and they protected their turf from the smaller Kings forwards.
The Grizzlies were coming off a 4-3 loss in Merritt on Friday in which they blew a lead with three minutes left and allowed Centennials forward James Neil to score the winner with eight-tenths of a second left in regulation time.
"It was a real good learning weekend for our team, we played pretty gritty," said Grizzlies head coach Bill Bestwick. "We didn't want to go home empty-handed and we played that way, and Alec was solid in goal."
The Spruce Kings beat Vernon 3-0 on Friday for their fourth straight victory. That win came at a cost, however, when top-line right winger Jake LeBrun was checked into the boards with an illegal hit and was sidelined with a concussion (see other story). Having already lost left winger Brent Lashuk, who suffered a concussion a week ago in Coquitlam, that took a combined 23 points out of the Kings' lineup Saturday.
"When you take what's basically our first line out of the game, and those are our biggest, oldest guys, who can sustain that pressure and win those battles against those guys, we were throwing those smaller lines at those big defenceman," said Kings head coach Dave Dupas. "It's a huge difference when you have those two big horses down there. We need all of our depth and that's how we're winning games, we throw four lines at people."
The Kings had a couple great chances in the second period, Justin Rai just missed swatting a rebound into an open net 14 minutes into the first and captain Bryant Christian was set up perfectly in the slot just after the Kings had killed a penalty late in the second period, but Dillon kicked out his leg to make the save.
Jenks, a native of Crofton, near Victoria, knows a half-dozen of the Grizzlies players and was hoping to come away with his third win in four starts this season. He kept it a one-goal deficit midway through the second with a flashy glove save off former King Myles Fitzgerald, who combined with his triplet brother Gerry on a 2-on-1 after Karan Toor fell at the blueline.
Rai and his linemates Jeremiah Ludtke and Chad Staley generated the best Kings chance of the night with about five minutes left, storming the net in a mad scramble. Dillon laid his lanky six-foot-five frame and his stick on the ice and somehow held the puck out until the play was blown dead when the net was knocked off its peg.
"It's a tough loss, we only allowed one goal in two games so we're OK defensively, we just couldn't convert a couple of our chances the other way," said Christian. "Things have been going well for us with four wins in five games, we had a good streak there."
