Surrey, B.C. – On Tim Horton’s Minor Hockey Night, the Surrey Eagles (5-8-0) brought back their retro jerseys in hopes of salvaging an even record during the weekend. Unfortunately, the Eagles surrendered 2 late 3rd period goals on route to a 4-1 loss at the hands of the Langley Rivermen (9-2-3).
The big story of the game was once again the Eagles inability to create anything on special teams. While Surrey only had 2 opportunities with the man advantage, both powerplays looked stale and weren’t able to generate much offensively. At the end of their first powerplay, Tyler Schleppe found himself in alone on Eagles starter Eli Pulver and opened the scoring.
After Surrey’s Joel Plante scored his 1st career BCHL goal to tie the game early in the 3rd, Keeton Oakley scored another breakaway goal to give the Rivermen a lead they wouldn’t relinquish a few minutes later. A controversial penalty against Eagles captain Jimmy Darby was called late in the 3rd period, and Langley would score on their 5th powerplay of the game to seal the deal. Riley Wallack, who scored the powerplay goal, added an empty netter for Langley to cap off the scoring.
For Eagles Head Coach Cam Keith, he didn’t hide what he thought was the main culprit in the Eagles 2nd straight defeat. “We struggled with our powerplay tonight. For whatever reason, things just aren’t clicking for us. If you don’t win the special teams battle, normally you’ll lose hockey games.” The Eagles are currently 1 for 19 in their last 5 games, and have struggled to generate many quality scoring chances with the man advantage throughout November.
It hasn’t been an easy start to the season for Surrey, and tonight’s loss didn’t help. Yet despite it all, there’s still a lot to be hopeful for as this young team continued their development on Sunday night in the eyes of their coach as they take things on a day by day basis. “We just have to try to get better every day. Not dwell too much on the past. We have a team which has a lot of potential, but in order to reach our potential we have to out work our opponents and get back to the basics of what wins hockey games consistently. There’s a lot of maturity which comes with that and with a young team these are lessons which continue to be learned on a game by game basis.”
On a more positive note for the Eagles, Joel Plante was finally rewarded for his hard work when he banged home a pass from Ante Zlomislic to tie the game in the 3rd. When asked about one of his 16 year old forwards, Cam was happy to heap praise on a player who has continued to work hard every game. “Joel’s been amazing, and he’s going to be a really good player. The guys love him, he brings a ton of energy to the game and it was nice to see him score his 1st tonight.”
The Eagles will look to rebound next Friday as they’ll host the Prince George Spruce Kings inside the South Surrey Arena. Puck drop is slated for 7:00pm, and you can buy your tickets online on our website. If you can’t make it to the game, you can watch the full broadcast live on BCHL TV (Powered by HockeyTV), and on mixlr.com/eaglesbchl.
