Surrey, B.C. – The Surrey Eagles raced out to a great start but were unable to contain the Coquitlam Express’ top line in a 7-4 loss. The loss is Surrey’s 3rd straight to start the season as this young team continued to try and find their footing in the contest.
Things started great for Surrey when Jacob Slipec and Grayden Slipec both scored their 1st goals of the season through the first 4 minutes, but Surrey couldn’t maintain the lead and gave up 3 unanswered goals to Coquitlam. Jacob Bonkowski scored late in the 1st to make it 3-3, but then everything fell apart in the 2nd. After starting the period out strong, the Eagles gave up a short handed goal to Arlo Merritt and were unable to recover. Ben Fontaine scored his second of the season in the 3rd, but by then it was too late. Max Prazma gave up 7 goals on 27 shots in the loss.
Coquitlam’s top line torched Surrey for a 2nd week in a row, with Arlo Merritt the 1st star tonight with 2 goals and an assist. Ryan Tattle added 3 points, and Ray Hamlin had 2 goals for the Express. Connor Mackenzie picked up his 2nd win against the Eagles giving up 4 goals on 29 shots.
For Eagles Head Coach Cam Keith, he continued to look for the positives and learning lessons from another defeat on home ice. “It was a game where we let our emotions get the better of us at times. We were a little too high in the beginning, and I think we crashed once they scored and we went into a shell which affected our play. The lesson with this young group is to stay even keeled and keep a next shift mentality and hopefully it’s a learning experience for this team.”
The Eagles have shown an ability to score throughout the first 3 games of the season, but the Eagles need to better at managing the puck moving forward in the eyes of their head coach. “We need to be better at managing the puck. It’s a chess match out there, and we need to stop trying to make a play out of everything. We need to use the walls, get pucks deep, and take open shots instead of trying to make that extra pass. These are common characteristics with a young team but we need to start making improvements in those areas if we want to win games.”
Cam continued to harp on managing the puck as the big thing he wants to see his team, and specifically his defense corps to work on moving forward. “It gets back to puck management. We’re not getting pucks out of our defensive zone when we have opportunities. We’re prolonging shifts where we’re tired, and put extra time into our defensive zone. This allows our opponents to generate momentum. So our young defense corps needs to keeps thing simple, use the walls, chips pucks and make simple plays which’ll carry us through the game and maintain our energy.”
The Eagles are right back at it tomorrow afternoon as they’ll look to get their 1st win of the season against an unbeaten Langley Rivermen team. Puck drop inside the South Surrey Arena is slated for 4:00pm, and you can purchase your tickets online here. If you can’t make it to the rink, you can catch the broadcast live on BCHL TV (Powered by HockeyTV), and on mixlr.com/eaglesbchl.
