Canadian Tire Centre was the place to be in Canada’s capital on Friday night. The hometown Ottawa Black Bears took their home turf and welcomed the Vancouver Warriors for a Week 9 clash for Canadian supremacy.
Time for some honesty; Vancouver won this game 12-8, and while the final score is indicative of a relatively close game, Vancouver controlled this one for most of it. This contest was a track meet in the first half and came to a screeching halt as soon as the third quarter started. The Warriors defense and Christian Del Bianco deserve the flowers for their performance in the second half, limiting a potent Ottawa offense, which includes Jeff Teat, to just two goals in the final 30 minutes.
Vancouver came out hot as they tallied the game’s first three goals, two of which were on the power play. Those goals were scored by Shanee Simpson, Curtis Dickson, and Jesse King. Larson Sundown finally got the Black Bears on the board with his first, but Vancouver answered with two more, one from King and the other from Matt Beers (one of my person favorites in the last name category of the league). Connor Kearnan buried his first in the waning seconds and that’s how the first would finish. 5-2 Warriors after one.
The pace was fast and furious in the first quarter, but somehow it increased in the second. Vancouver opened it up with a four-goal run to start, and this was starting to look like a runaway. The first was a beautiful transition marker from Simpson, and it was a history maker as well. Del Bianco made a save in his end and fired a pass all the way up the floor to Simpson who buried the shot. CDB got the assist, which was the 100th of his career, making him only the fourth goaltender in league history to reach that mark. Another nugget: of the 59 career goals for Simpson, Del Bianco has assisted on 24 of them. Talk about a dangerous combination in transition. The other three Warriors goals were scored by Dickson, Adam Charalambides, and Keegan Bal. Teat finally buried his first of the game but was quickly answered by Bal’s second. Ottawa didn’t exactly roll over, as they closed the second quarter out on a three-goal run to cut the deficit. Those three were courtesy of Sam Firth, Teat, and Kearnan on the power play. 10-6 Vancouver at the break.
“I think it’s hard to score five-on-five”, said Beers. “If we can help out in transition to take some pressure off the offense, we’ll try to do that. It’s a game of runs, they did a good job adjusting, we just have to counter that.”
As we said at the beginning, this game came to a screeching halt in the third and fourth quarters. After 16 combined goals in the first half, there were only four total in the second half. Both defenses settled in nicely, and they were cutting off the transition that was very alive and well in the first 30 minutes. Bal got the scoring started with his hat trick on the power play, but that’d be the only goal Vancouver would score the rest of the frame. Teat and Jacob Dunbar lit the lamp for Ottawa and the deficit was narrowed. 11-8 Warriors after three.
One lone goal was scored in the fourth quarter, and it was courtesy of Charalambides at the 14:14 mark. The rest of the way was a defensive battle, with both goaltenders making timely saves. Ottawa just couldn’t crack the brick wall that was Del Bianco. Vancouver ran out with a big road win.
Players of the game for Vancouver were Bal (3+2), King (2+4), and Charalambides (2+2). Del Bianco was in rare form, standing on his head and really breaking out the Warriors transition. He made 42 saves on 50 shots. For Ottawa, Teat (3+3), Kearnan (2+2), and Sundown (1+1) led the way. Zach Higgins had his ups and downs in this one, but he did settle in nicely in the second half. He stopped 28 of 39 in total.
“I think we felt like we got kicked in the teeth last week”, said King after the game. “Going into this, we wanted it to be a fresh start, I think we wanted to start strong, and we did.”
Vancouver looks to build off this momentum. They stay on the road and travel to Rochester for their next contest. That game is on Saturday January 31st at 7pm. Ottawa looks to get right back into the win column. Their next chance is also on the road as they take on Toronto. That game is also on January 31st at 7pm.
