Port Alberni, B.C. – The Surrey Eagles (4-6-0) took to the road and left the lower mainland for the first time since the 2019-20 BCHL season. However, the Alberni Valley Bulldogs (6-3-1) dominated play for much of the game and skated to a 5-0 win over the Eagles on Friday night inside the Weyerhaeuser Arena.
It was a night to forget as the Eagles started slow and weren’t able to generate any consistent offense in the game. Their best stretch of play came with the game scoreless to begin the 2nd period, but after being unable to beat Bulldog starter Hobie Hedquist the Bulldogs blew the game open with 3 goals in quick succession. Alberni Valley added 2 more in the 3rd period, and dominated the shot column to a tune of 42-18 overall in the game. Eli Pulver was the only reason the score wasn’t worse, and made 37 saves in the loss.
When asked about what his team can build upon moving forward after a game like this, Eagles Head Coach Cam Keith made it very clear his team needed to play better overall and stay within themselves. “It’s a learning experience when you lose like this. We need to play good solid hockey in the first 10 minutes, and stay disciplined to our systems. A slow start hurt us tonight, and if we can take any positives there were times tonight where we had our offense going and defended well. When it went bad, it went really bad and we couldn’t dig ourselves out of the hole tonight.”
The stretch of play in the 2nd period was the lone bright spot for the team on Friday night, and Cam Keith explained why his team played so well during that stretch. “I think we played within ourselves. Guys were playing together, using each other; simplified hockey where it was d to d passes, up to an easy option and chipping it in and establishing offense that way. When things weren’t working, we were trying to make something out of nothing and weren’t working as a cohesive unit in the defensive zone, which led to problems. We have to play together as a unit, stick together as a unit, and work our way out of these moments in games where we fall into a watching style of hockey.”
While the Eagles were able to kill off 5 Bulldog power plays, Cam was quick to dismiss the play of the kill and heaped praise on Pulver. “Eli Pulver made some big saves. Our PK wasn’t all that great, but Eli Pulver did a real good job tonight. The score would’ve been a lot worse if Eli didn’t make some of the saves he made tonight.”
The Eagles will look for a bounce back performance Saturday night against the Victoria Grizzlies to cap off this road trip. Puck drop is slated for 7:00pm, and you can catch the broadcast live on BCHL TV (Powered by HockeyTV) and on mixlr.com/eaglesbchl.
