Nanaimo, BC – The Surrey Eagles looked to even up their first round playoff series against the Nanaimo Clippers after a heartbreaking loss in game 1. However, the Eagles gave up four unanswered through the first thirty minutes and ultimately Surrey couldn’t come back in a 7-4 defeat which saw them fall down 2-0 in the series.
Buddy Johnson opened the scoring for Surrey in the first period, but the Eagles gave up the tying goal a minute later when Sean Donaldson scored his 2nd of the series on the powerplay. After Donaldson’s goal, Jeremie Payant scored twice to stake the Clippers out to a 3-1 lead to end the frame. Early in the second period Cole Hansen snuck a shot off the rush through the five hole of Eagles starter Max Prazma and the Clippers threatened to run away with the game.
To their credit, the Eagles never looked out of the game and got one back when Jacob Bonkowski tapped home a beautiful pass from Michael Abgrall to make it 4-2 after a strong shift in the Clippers zone. The teams traded goals to close out the second period despite the Eagles out shooting the Clippers 22-11 in the middle frame.
In the third period, the Eagles made things interesting when Bonkowski ripped home his second of the game past Clippers starter Cooper Black. Unfortunately for the Eagles, Eli Pulver, who entered the game in relief of Prazma in the third, and Oliver Gabrielson got their signals crossed and Jake Hewitt stripped Pulver of the puck before finding Daniels in front for an easy tap in to put the game out of reach. Nanaimo added an empty net goal to seal the game. Grayden Slipec scored the other goal for Surrey, and the Eagles out shot the Clippers 42-30 in the game. Both teams scored once on the powerplay.
When asked about his initial thoughts on the game, Cam Keith praised his team’s resiliency on a night where they never relented regardless of the score. “We never gave up when things were tough. We were down, we tried to come back and we fell behind again but that never deterred our team. The guys stuck together and I’m very proud of them.”
For this young team to continue battling back was a huge positive sign for this young Eagles team moving forward in the series. It won’t be easy, but Cam knows there’s still a lot of hockey to be played and for his young team to continue working hard in a tough game says a lot about this group. “Battling back is a crucial part of playoffs. Any situation can change depending on the dynamics of what’s happening in a game. All we could really control tonight was to try and get some momentum in our direction and I thought we did the best we could at accomplishing that.”
After two tough games on the island, the series swings to the lower mainland on Monday when the Eagles will host the Clippers inside the South Surrey Arena. When asked about what the Eagles need to do better in game 3, Cam was short and sweet with his answer. “We just need to establish a lead early and find our game before they do.”
Puck drop for game 3 is slated for 7:30pm, and tickets are available on our website. If you can’t make it to ‘The Nest’, you can catch all the action on BCHL TV (Powered by HockeyTV), and on mixlr.com/eaglesbchl.
