Surrey, BC – It’s not often a hockey team doesn’t skate for two days between games but the Surrey Eagles looked none the worse for wear for it on Monday afternoon at the South Surrey Arena, as for the second time in four days they defeated the Chilliwack Chiefs. The 5-2 victory, on the heels of Friday night’s 4-2 score, was Surrey’s eighth in its past 10 games, while Chilliwack is wobbling along with two in their past 10.
The numbers get more interesting as it was also Surrey’s sixth straight win over Chilliwack, with the two teams set to meet in the first round of the playoffs. With both teams having two games remaining in the regular season, second place in the Mainland Division remains on the line as with the pair of wins the Eagles pulled within two points of the team they’re chasing.
Surrey head coach Cam Keith scheduled the mini-break while his team is in a stretch of five games in nine nights to wrap up their regular season. As he put it, “just trying to keep them mentally there. Whether it worked or not? Today could have been the perfect day for them to ‘take it off.’ We’ve been winning a lot of games.”
The win was Surrey’s fourth straight. All 4 wins have been on home ice, always the sign of a good hockey team, on a homestand which started off with a loss and improved the team’s home record this season to two games above .500. “I think it was very important for us to establish home-ice advantage, that’s the positive I’m going to take out of these past two games,” said Keith. “Our goal for our home stand has been that we needed to assert our home ice. Show dominance, where we control the play, we dictate how the games goes. And if anything bad happens, it’s because of our sloppiness, or circumstance. Nobody’s perfect, but you still have to have that overall feeling of: This is our ice. You’re skating on it, but it’s still ours.”
“It took a long time, but I feel like we are as close as we we’re going to be, we’ve reached our full potential as far as that element goes. You’ve got to give the kids a lot of credit. They just keep playing.”
Keith also stuck with team’s hot goaltender, Reece Klassen, who improved his record to 9-3-1 since joining the team at the Jan. 10 trade deadline. The 20-year-old WHL veteran and Surrey native is giving the team as good as it gets between the pipes in the league, posting a 2.20 GAA and .927 SV% with two shutouts. Monday was another stellar day, as he turned aside 18 of the 33 shots he faced in the opening 20 minutes. In his past three games, in which he has allowed four goals, Klassen has been named first, second and first star.
Surrey carried a 3-1 lead, as well as a powerplay into the third period but gave up a shorthanded own goal 2:31 in. Less than 30 seconds later, with Surrey still on the powerplay, Klassen came up with his biggest save of the game when he stopped Chilliwack’s Brett Rylance in alone on a breakaway. Four minutes later, Eagles captain Hudson Schandor, back from a two-game spell on the IR, scored to restore Surrey’s two-goal lead and with the way Klassen has been playing the issue was settled when White Rock native Buddy Johnson made it the final 5-2 margin seven minutes from the final whistle.
Klassen’s arrival coincides with the rest of the team playing its best hockey of the season, and came about after the team’s starting goalie Tommy Scarfone went down with a groin injury suffered during the team’s Christmas break. Since coming off the IR on Feb. 1, Scarfone has been forced to take a backseat to the red-hot addition. He is 2-1 with a shutout of his own, it notably coming in Chilliwack against the Chiefs, his first in the BCHL as well as in his first game in a month. Combined with a veteran D corps, the Eagles are stingy most nights with whoever’s in net.
The Eagles lost two players to the game through injury, forwards Adamo Santia, the victim of a kneeing major assessed to Chilliwack’s Cooper Moore in the second period, and Kenny Riddett, to a wrist injury in third period. Chilliwack goalie Mathieu Caron was knocked out of the game with three minutes to play after taking a teammate’s knee in the head.
Surrey travels to league-leading Coquitlam on Wednesday before finishing up at home on Friday against Langley. Chilliwack has two home games remaining, against Salmon Arm Wednesday and Langley Sunday, with the playoffs set to commence the following weekend.
