Talk about an ugly road win.
The Chilliwack Chiefs grinded out a 3-2 victory at the Rolling Mix Concrete Arena against the Prince George Spruce Kings on Thursday.
Despite being outshot 48-21 overall 20-year old goaltender Mark Sinclair held the fort stopping 46 saves between the pipes.
After a flurry of chances for the Spruce Kings Jake Smith buried home a Kohen Olischefski on an odd-man rush past Prince George goaltender Tavin Grant for a 1-0 lead after 20 minutes despite being outshot 15-5.
In the middle frame, Jamie Huber would capitalize on a lucky bounce in front of the net squeaking one by Sinclair for a 1-1 tie.
The tide turned in favour of the Chiefs past the halfway point of the period when a Hunter Luhmann slashing penalty put Chilliwack on the power-play resulting in a top-shelf goal by BCHL scoring star Jordan Kawaguchi.
Just 22 seconds later, the Chiefs added another as Smith potted his second of the contest giving the visitors a 3-1 lead at the intermission.
The pace of the game slowed to a crawl in the third until a 4 on 4 situation cut the Chiefs lead in half when Spruce Kings Head Coach Chad Van Diemen elected to pull Grant with 3:40 remaining for the extra-attacker and later resulted in a Ben Brar marker for a 3-2 score.
Sinclair says it was gutsy performance from his team. “It was a tough game and a tough building to play in, the rink is a bit smaller and they know how to play in it so anytime you come here it will be a tough one but the guys battled through and blocked shots.”
MYPGNOW caught up with Spruce Kings Forward Jamie Huber after the game and says it was a tough pill to swallow. “We played pretty good for the most part, I think we just got away from our game in the second and they managed to capitalize twice so we have to stick to the game plan and play 60 minutes.”
Despite the loss, Huber believes a lot of positives were drawn. “We know we can compete with the top-end teams in the league, we have proven it and will do that over and over again this year. It was good for us to keep putting pucks on net and that was part of our game plan.”
The Chiefs went 2 for 4 on the power-play while PG was 0 for 5.
The Spruce Kings fall 13 points back of Chilliwack for 2nd place in the Mainland Division.
Prince George is back on the ice Friday at 7pm against the Victoria Grizzlies.
BCHL Scoreboard
Wenatchee Wild 4 Surrey Eagles 1