The KLP Construction Peewee A Tyees played the Saanich Braves in a single-game semi-final match in Tier 2 playoffs on Saturday at Rod Brind’Amour arena.
Both teams started somewhat tentative which can be expected given that the winner moved on to the best-of-three final series.
Unfortunately the Tyees lost Liam Rivett early in the game due to penalty and Saanich opened the scoring on the ensuing power play. That spurred on the Tyees, especially goalie Ethan Ouellette. The Braves tried to throw everything on the net, almost as if they were covering up for the loss of their number one goalie due to concussion a couple of weeks ago, but Ouellette shut the door on them and kept it a one goal game.
But by the time the first period ended it was the Tyees up 4-1.
The second period began similar to the first with a few rushes broken up and turned aside by strong defensive plays by Olivia Knowles, Mitchell Rogers and others. On a counterattack, Doug Campbell saw the defenders backing up and splitting apart. He took the free space offered and brought the puck to the high slot before wiring a wrist shot in the top corner of the net for the Tyees fifth goal.
Teams traded chances and power-plays. Ouellette frustrated Saanich by making key saves and good work on the penalty kill helped tremendously. Late in the second, the Tyees went on another power-play. Damien Rennie fed the puck to Jacob Hartley and he got it to Lund in a prime shooting position. Lund scored his second goal to make the score 6-1 at the end of the second.
The Braves pulled out all stops in this must-win game and that made them vulnerable to the counter-attack. Frank made another perfect stretch pass to Ben Regier that he brought down perfectly from two feet above the ice.
This rattled the Braves and they ended up in the sin bin again. Face-off in Braves zone, Campbell wins it to Dickson who feeds it back to Frank as McLean heads to the front of the net for the screen. Frank fires the rocket on net. The goalie was falling down into his butterfly as the puck was already coming out from behind him as Frank put the Tyees ahead 7-1. The Braves were able to score the last goal with about twenty seconds left to make the final 7-2 for the Tyees. Given the strong play of goalies Nic Ordano and Ouellette, the Tyees are in the fortunate situation of having two number one goalies in their lineup.
The Tyees now face the Division 1 regular season winners, Juan de Fuca Grizzlies in the Tier 2 finals. Game 1 of the best-of-three series starts at 2:15 p.m. Sat Feb 15 at Rod Brind’Amour arena.
This will be a very difficult challenge for the KLP Construction Peewee A Tyees as the Grizzlies were undefeated in 12 regular season Division 1 games. The Grizzlies bring a fast-paced, hard-hitting approach to their games and try to intimidate opponents early with their attack.
The Tyees haven’t always played their best game against JDF but they are starting to really jell together at the right time in these playoffs.