With the Victoria Shamrocks disposing of the New Westminster Salmonbellies in a series sweep 4-0 and the Maple Ridge Burrards beating out the Burnaby Lakers 4-2 we have our WLA finals set.
Coming into this series the Shamrocks took two of three games in the season series (7-4/8-7) and tied the last game 9-9 with Curtis Dickson scoring 7 points for the Burrards in the last affair and what I find interesting in this stat is that Matt Flindell started for the first win and the tie and Cody Hagedorn won the second game. With Dickson back in the lineup for the last game Findell got the start, where I’m going with this is after Findell also had a struggle to finish the series with the Bellie’s it was Hagedorn who came in about mid way in the third for the Shamrocks to close the series out and after Flindell finished the season going 11-0-2 he didn’t start game one of the WLA finals yesterday, Hagedorn did. Now, after out shooting the Burrard’ss by 29 (49-21) in game one and coming out on top 9-5 an educated person would guess that Hagedorn who went 3-2 in 9 appearances for the Rocks this year it would seem to go with the hot goalie and see if they can’t repeat a first round sweep. On the other side of the floor the Burrard’s have recently awarded Rookie of the year and goalie of the year Frankie Scigliano in net who went 6-6-1 this year and a minuet .665 GAA in his first year officially as a senior “A” starter to keep them in games and try to shut the high scoring offence that is the Shamrocks at bay.
After a pretty even first ten minutes or so both teams came out looking a little tentative and not wanting to make the first mistake, then it seemed on a early power play was all Victoria needed to wake up. Although they never scored on it, they got 5 solid chances and definitely started gaining alot of momentum and pressure that the Burrards couldn’t seem to handle even though it wasn’t reflective in the 2-1 score at the end of the first, Duch and the Rocks were much more physical and aggressive finishing the period with a 25-5 shot advantage and 1/4 on the power play which could have been alot worse if the refs had called everything there was to call. Brandon Bull scored on a shot I don’t think Scigliano expected due to his reaction which was Bull’s first post season goal and got the scoring going for both teams. Two minutes later and with the Burrads killing a penalty, the Shamrocks fell asleep and let Colton Porter sneak in and get Maple Ridge on the board just before the mid point in the opening frame. With just over five minutes left and on the Shamrocks third powerplay of the night Scott Ranger get’s his first goal of the finals off a quick release and a nice pass from Dhane Smith.
The second period started much the same way the first ended. Just 1:14 into the frame Chris Wardle got a nice feed from Dhane Smith and buried it over Burrards goalie Frankie Scigliano to get the momentum going for the Shamrocks early but, the Burrards kept up with an even shot total in the period 9-9 and as the period went on the chippy-ness that is WLA post season kicked in. After the Shamrocks killed a long 5 minute major Scott Ranger scored on a delayed penalty making the game 4-1 at that point. Three minutes late Ryan Dilks made himself open to get on the score sheet and extend the Victoria lead to four goals, but, with play starting to level out again late in the period the Burrard’s woke up a bit to keep it interesting as Patrick Omeara had a great individual effort as well as Ben McIntosh also chimed in on the scoring making it 5-3 going into the third.
In his first WLA finals appearance Curtis Dickson opened the scoring just :24 into the third period on a quick shot that woke up Maple Ridge but as play started gaining momentum the Burrards took another penalty on which Corey Small get’s his first goal of the night on a nice setup from Smith and Duch. Three minutes later Riley Loewen set a pick for McIntosh that lead to a quick fake and what would end up being Maple Ridge’s final goal of the night. Late in the game the Shamrocks offence started controlling the floor and they got goals from Hass, Wardle and Smith which would round out the scoring making the game one final 9-5 for the Shamrocks to take a 1-0 series lead in the best of seven.
Game two goes Friday, NOTE the start time being 5:45 PST.
Friday @ Planet Ice 5:45
Sunday @ The Q Center 6:00
Monday @ Planet Ice 7:45
Wednesday @ The Q Center 7:45
Friday @ Planet Ice 5:45
Sunday @ The Q Center 6:00
(Note: All times are PST)
