Surrey, BC – Their first game after clinching a playoff spot proved to be a losing effort, albeit a good one, as the Surrey Eagles dropped a 3-2 B.C Hockey League decision at the South Surrey Arena to the Salmon Arm Silverbacks on Sunday afternoon.
Salmon Arm, in the midst of their own Interior Division playoff positioning battle, came into the game having dropped two straight games against Island Division opponents on Friday and Saturday nights. They came out strong and determined from the opening puck-drop, held the lead twice and secured the win with a late third-period powerplay goal off the stick of Coalson Wolford who banged home a rebound from in tight. The winner came shortly after Eagles’ captain Hudson Schandor put one home to tie the game at 2-2 at 15:17 of the third period, much to the delight of his teammates as well as the Eagles’ biggest home crowd of the season.
The Eagles were also playing their third game in as many nights, and while Surrey head coach Cam Keith acknowledged that might have played a part in the loss he wasn’t about to give the youngest team in the league a completely free pass.
“It was a third-in-three-days Sunday game and when you have that you’re going to have highs and lows with energy, and I thought our game was pretty solid but scrambly,” said Keith post-game. “At times we over-complicated things in the offensive zone when we didn’t need to and we didn’t have enough traffic in front of the net regularly enough, so we took a lot of shots that I thought were easy for him,” he said of the game’s first star, Silverbacks goalie Grant Adams, who stopped 42 of the 44 shots the Eagles fired his way.
“We’ve been playing good hockey and we played good hockey again tonight. But we didn’t generate enough traffic and second-chance opportunities,” repeated Keith. “We made some nice plays on net but after their guy made his saves I felt we were just kind of watching.”
Both of Surrey’s goals did come from their top line, and both on the powerplay, with team-leading scorer Cristophe Tellier assisting on both Brandon Santa Juana and Hudson Schandor’s game tying goals. Eagles goalie Reece Klassen, while not overworked, still produced all but one save that made the difference in a close, well-contested hockey game.
Looking ahead to the last month of the regular season with a playoff berth now in hand, Keith, the first-year coach of the league’s youngest team which struggled early before learning how to hold their own, stayed true to course. “We do have a team that feels like it can play against anybody right now. We really haven’t talked playoffs until this point. We’ve just talked about being the best version of ourselves.”
That conversation, and their game, will now both need to ramp up in intensity. As the regular season enters its homestretch, this year’s Eagles are not only in the race, but are also a threat. As such Surrey has more than accomplished its primary if not its biggest goal this season after being the only BCHL team not to qualify for the playoffs last season.
The loss leaves Surrey three points ahead of the Langley Rivermen in the fight for third place in the BCHL’s Mainland Division, with the Rivermen holding a game in hand. The Eagles return to action next weekend with a home-and-home against the second-placed Chilliwack Chiefs, who hold an eight-point lead over the Eagles, as well as a game in hand.
