Burnaby, BC – The Surrey Eagles (18-16-0) looked for revenge on Saturday following a tough loss against the Langley Rivermen (20-8-3) on Friday. After a slow start for both teams inside the Bill Copeland Arena, the Eagles exploded during a 3 goal 2nd period and soared to a 5-1 win.
After a scoreless 1st period which saw Surrey with a 13-7 shot advantage came to a close, it looked like the Eagles were in for another game where Langley’s BCHL best goaltending was going to be able to withstand the Surrey barrage. In the second period, those thoughts dissipated as the Eagles finally broke through and matched their goal totals from the last 3 games versus Langley combined. Jacob Slipec, Ante Zlomislic, and Primo Self got the Eagles on the board and gave them an advantage they never came close to losing.
Michael Abgrall had 2 goals in the 3rd period to round out the scoring, and Max Prazma was solid in limited action and made 22 saves in the victory. Langley’s Andrej Kovacevic broke the shutout for Prazma, while Jameson Kaine gave up 4 goals in the defeat.
When asked about his initial thoughts on the game, Eagles Head Coach Cam Keith was thrilled with the play of his entire team. “I thought we played a complete game. We had 4 lines which were contributing in a way where you couldn’t really tell which line was which. Everyone was playing a safer style of game where we kept pucks to the outside and played honest hockey. It’s the type of hockey we need to play moving forward which will gear us up for playoffs.”
After a tough game Friday in which the Eagles weren’t able to generate a ton of offense, the boys dug down and played a grittier style and scored multiple goals right in front of Kaine’s crease. This style of play is something Cam believes his team needs to continue moving forward this season and thinks a game like this can help build more confidence. “It’s a confidence builder if we play that way and we get to the net that these guys are going to get rewarded and it shows us how we’ll score goals in the 2nd half and into playoffs. It’s getting to those areas, getting shots through, and gaining confidence and reinforcement that works. That’s big for this group because this group wants to pass and innately make the extra play, but this group needs to find a happy medium between those two styles.”
Surrey’s offense wasn’t the only story, as the Eagles were able to limit Langley to just 23 shots against in the game. When asked about his defense, Cam praised his group’s team first mentality and their efficiency throughout the game. “The defense did a really good job of closing space and not allowing to generate a lot of space in our defensive zone. We also did a really good job of getting pucks out. A lot of d-to-d quick plays which aren’t the fancy play which’ll get you on the highlight reel but we kept pucks to the outside, efficiently got pucks out of our defensive zone which led to more offensive zone time.”
The Eagles get a much needed break after a full week and a half of action before heading back to Vancouver Island on Saturday, January 29th to play the Nanaimo Clippers. Puck drop is slated for 7:00pm, and you can catch all the action on BCHL TV (Powered by HockeyTV), and on mixlr.com/eaglesbchl.
