Surrey Wins 3rd Straight With 7-4 Win Over Coquitlam

Coquitlam, B.C. – The Surrey Eagles (8-8-0) looked for their 3rd win in a row on Friday night inside the Poirier Sport & Leisure Complex. It wasn’t easy, but they battled past an early deficit and spoiled the Coquitlam Express’ (6-10-2) Teddy Bear Toss Night with a 7-4 win which pulled the Eagles back to .500 for the first time since opening night.

It was an up and down game right from puck drop. Coquitlam’s Christian MacDougall scored 40 seconds in on the powerplay to send the teddy bears onto the ice. The Eagles remained undeterred and Grayden Slipec tied the game up 7 minutes later. After Arlo Merritt restored the Coquitlam lead, the Eagles scored 3 unanswered goals to wrap up the frame with a 4-2 lead. They wouldn’t relinquish it the rest of the night but that wasn’t from lack of effort from Coquitlam. After MacDougall and Ryan Tattle scored to make it 5-4 in the 3rd, the Eagles buckled down and gutted out the win to close out the game. Jacob Slipec and Joel Plante both had empty net goals late to ice the game for Surrey.

Jake Bongo scored 2 goals in the game for Surrey, while Jacob Bonkowski and Michael Abgrall each scored in the contest as well. Max Prazma made 26 saves in the victory. Both teams had 30 shots in the game, and both teams scored 1 powerplay goal in a spirited affair between division rivals which featured a major penalty, multiple coincidental minors, and scrums which happened after every whistle in front of both Prazma and Coquitlam starter Connor Mackenzie.

For Eagles Head Coach Cam Keith, tonight’s win featured a bit of everything in both ends of the rink. “We stuck to the game plan for the first 30 minutes, and created a lot of chances from shots up top and a lot of kids who needed to score scored. When it mattered late in the game in the last 10 minutes we had a lot of hard shifts from our defense and shut it down when we needed to.”

This win wasn’t just important to keep their winning streak alive, but after a rough start to the season the Eagles finally climbed back to a .500 win percentage. The achievement was a massive hurdle for this group in the eyes of their coach and should push them moving forward. “I think it’s a huge barrier which we had faced previously. We’ve needed to continuously improve when we’re having success, and winning 2 games and taking a step back like we’ve previously done  would’ve been tough. Tonight was a huge step in getting over that hill and not being satisfied with where we’re at, and pushing to improve and not being stuck on previous results.”

In an up and down game tonight, the Eagles may have faltered earlier in the year. However they stuck through it and came away with the victory in a game where Cam admitted his team still needs to do a better job of keeping their emotions in check. “We have to keep our emotions in check. We lost ourselves a bit in the 2nd period, and momentum is a fragile thing in hockey. You have to make sure you’re doing the right things to keep momentum or at least not give it away. This young group received another learning experience and found out you can’t be comfortable in a game and you need to push for everything. Not just offensively, but also with our emotions to make sure we’re not getting involved in stuff between the whistles which affects our play and change what we’re putting our energy towards. We need to make sure we’re taking care of the stuff on the ice and not getting involved in the other stuff between the whistles which negatively affects how we want to play.”

The Eagles will look to climb above .500 for the first time this season against the visiting Chilliwack Chiefs on Sunday inside the South Surrey Arena. Puck drop is slated for 4:00pm, and you can grab your tickets online by checking out our ticket page. If you can’t make it too ‘The Nest’, you can watch the broadcast live on BCHL TV (Powered by HockeyTV) and on mixlr.com/eaglesbchl.