The Penticton Vees didn’t get much puck luck while running into a hot goaltender and fell to the Salmon Arm Silverbacks by a 5-2 score on Wednesday night at the Shaw Centre.
The Vees started the game with some good energy and jump, generating strong offensive zone opportunities in the opening frame but the media timeout shifted the energy and the Silverbacks took advantage to take a 1-0 lead just over 10 minutes into the hockey game.
Akito Hirose gathered the puck off a wrap around the boards and from the right point put a shot on goal that was deflected by Daniel Rybarik skating through the front of the crease to go through the legs of Vees goaltender Yaniv Perets to push the Silverbacks ahead by a 1-0 score at the 10:23 mark of the opening frame.
A power play generated the second goal of the game for Salmon Arm as they jumped ahead by a 2-0 score just under two minutes later. Jayden Price raced down the left wing and sent a puck to the blocker side post from the left-wing corner that eluded Perets and snuck underneath his right pad as the Silverbacks took a 2-0 lead at the 13:50 mark of the 1st period.
The Vees started the second period with a power play that generated some chances but just couldn’t bury and the Silverbacks found a way to get ahead by a 3-0 score. Rybarik buried his second of the game as the Vees couldn’t get the puck out of their own zone and Rybarik gathered in the slot and beat Perets on the glove side at the 2:56 mark to make it a 3-0 Salmon Arm advantage.
Penticton answered back to cut the Silverbacks lead to two goals with back-and-forth chances ending in a Vees tally. Steve Holtz took a pass from the right side and wristed a shot off the blocker shoulder of Silverbacks netminder Ethan Langenegger with the rebound falling for Jay O’Brien, who slid his 8th goal of the season past on the blocker side at the 4:54 mark to make it a 3-1 game.
Salmon Arm retaliated and pushed their lead to three goals again at the 9:58 mark of the middle stanza with Perets turning aside two strong scoring chances by Nick Martino collected a rebound off of the blocker of the Vees netminder and beat him on the blocker side for a 4-1 lead.
The majority of the 2nd period was heavily dominated by the Vees, outshooting the Silverbacks by a 21-9 margin and creating numerous chances to score inside the Salmon Arm zone but the puck didn’t bounce in the Vees favour as well as being matched by the solid goaltending of Langenegger.
As Penticton continued to press in the 3rd period, Salmon Arm would bring the puck against the flow of play and push their lead to 5-1 at the 6:09 mark of the final frame. Simon Tassy got a pass on the right side as he let go of a wrist shot from the right face-off circle that got past Perets to increase the Silverbacks advantage.
The scoring was capped off with Danny Weight pushing the Vees to within three goals at the 14:07 mark of the 3rd period after a scramble on the glove side of Langenegger. David Silye put a shot on as the rebound popped out to Weight in the right circle as he tallied his 8th goal of the season and made the final score 5-2 in favour of the Silverbacks.
Yaniv Perets turned aside 30 of the 35 shots he faced in the game in his 1st loss of the season while Ethan Langenegger stopped 41 of the 43 shots directed his way in his 9th win of the season.