Chilliwack, B.C. – The Surrey Eagles (4-5-0) looked for revenge on Wednesday night against the Chilliwack Chiefs (4-5-0) who had beaten them a few days ago on Saturday. It wasn’t a pretty game, but Max Prazma dazzled in his best start as an Eagle and helped back stop Surrey to a big 2-1 win over the Chiefs. The win was Prazma’s 1st of the year, and he was named 1st star in the contest.
Eagles Head Coach Cam Keith echoed the sentiments on his starting goaltender; he gave full praise for his performance against the Chiefs and admitted it was huge to see Prazma bounce back when asked about him. “[It’s] a relief. He bailed us out tonight, especially in the 2nd period. I thought there were some that should’ve gone in, but he just battled through 2nd chance opportunities. He pushed pucks out and didn’t give them a lot to shoot at. It was a great confidence booster for him.”
Prazma stood tall in the final 40 minutes after giving up the 1st goal of the game to Dawson Good in the 1st period. He wouldn’t surrender another goal after that, and made 32 saves in the game which included a number of phenomenal saves. While the Eagles struggled to generate a lot offensively, they sold out and did what they could for their goaltender and helped him backstop them to the victory. Grayden Slipec and Michael Abgrall scored for Surrey in the win for the Eagles.
This wasn’t the best game for Surrey, and Cam credited his young team riding their emotions again in the game on Wednesday. “I thought we rode the highs and lows of the game, and we’re still growing as a team. We dug down in the last 10 minutes when we needed to, and some of our defenseman made some key stops and crucial exits out of our own zone while we stuck together as a group.”
While the Eagles may not have generated a lot offensively, their play defensively was impressive. Especially considering Eagles captain and defenseman Jimmy Darby was not in the lineup on Wednesday. When asked about his young defensemen and how they played, Cam was proud of how his group battled through the game. “I thought all of our defensemen stuck to our game plan of trying to exit the zone as quick as possible. We needed to minimize time in our defensive zone by limiting turnovers, and our forwards did a good job of coming back and helping them out. They all did great defensively tonight.”
Surrey will head to Vancouver Island this weekend to continue their season for a mini 2 game road trip. Their first game is Friday night, against the Alberni Valley Bulldogs. Puck drop is slated for 7:00pm inside the Weyerhaeuser Arena. You can catch the broadcast live on BCHL TV (Powered by HockeyTV), and on mixlr.com/eaglesbchl.
