Surrey, BC – After a tough loss on Saturday night, the Surrey Eagles (23-20-0) looked for some redemption on home ice against the Coquitlam Express (12-24-5). Eli Pulver proceeded to play his best game of the season and earned his first career BCHL shutout in a 3-0 win over the Express.
When asked about his initial thoughts on the game Eagles Head Coach Cam Keith had high praise for his starting goaltender, who played 100 minutes against the Express and gave up just 1 goal on 49 shots against this weekend. “Really happy for Eli Pulver to earn his first shutout. He made some big saves today and you have to give him a lot of credit for today’s win.” Tonight’s win was Pulver’s 10th of the season.
Ante Zlomislic opened the scoring for Surrey in the 2nd period when he tipped home a pass from Drew Tsakounis. Jake Bongo followed with power move to bury the insurance goal a few minutes later. In the 3rd period Grayden Slipec ripped home a beautiful shot which popped Carter Woodside’s water bottle off the net to give Surrey a 3-0 lead with another powerplay goal. Both teams finished the game with 29 shots.
Surrey needed to make some adjustments after Saturday’s game, and the boys looked great in the rematch on Sunday. When asked about the adjustments his team made, Cam talked positively about his teams physical play and the discipline they showed in what was hard fought game. “I thought we were extremely disciplined with how we handled certain situations. We didn’t lose our cool, we stayed disciplined and we got a lot of powerplay time because of it. We played a really sound overall game which moved towards the playoff style we want to play.” Surrey’s powerplay went 1 for 6 on the night officially, but Bongo’s goal came 1 second after a Coquitlam penalty expired in the 2nd period.
Oliver Gabrielson continued to impress in his 2nd game, picking up another assist. Affiliate player Matteo Speranza made his BCHL debut and didn’t look out of place, but when asked about which young player showed up and continued to excel Cam praised the highly touted Grayden Slipec who continued to look like a dominant force in the 2nd half of the season. “You gotta give a lot of credit to Grayden Slipec. He continues to get better not just offensively but defensively as well. This has allowed us to use him in a lot of different situations, which has given him more ice time, which has given him more confidence. It was really fun watching him with Galata and Bongo today. They all have the same hockey sense and they had great cohesion tonight.”
Surrey will look to build on tonight’s win next week when they’ll head to Chilliwack to battle the Chiefs inside the Chilliwack Coliseum. Puck drop is slated for 5:00pm on Sunday, February 27th. You can catch all the action live on BCHL TV (Powered by HockeyTV) and on mixlr.com/eaglesbchl.
