Jackson Kyrkostas and Felix Caron each tallied a goal and an assist with five different goal scorers coming together for the West Kelowna Warriors in a 5-3 triumph over the Trail Smoke Eaters on Saturday night at Royal LePage Place.
The Warriors came out of the 1st period as the better team with a lot of possession held inside of the Trail zone, despite the 1-1 score line after the opening 20 minutes. West Kelowna outshot Trail by a 19-6 margin in the first frame but it was the Smoke Eaters who would open the scoring late in the period at the 17:22 mark courtesy of Jason Stefanek.
A bouncing puck inside of the Warriors zone through the slot could not be corralled by anyone in a Warriors jersey before Stefanek gathered on the blocker side of West Kelowna netminder Matthew DellaRusso and sent a shot over his right shoulder to put the visitors ahead by a 1-0 score.
The lead did not last long as on the next shift, Felix Caron even the score 21 seconds after the opening marker. Caron took a stretch pass from Jackson Kyrkostas down the right wing and cut to the face-off circle, dragging around a Smoke Eaters defender and snapping a shot past the glove side of Smoke Eaters goaltender Teagan Kendrick for his 1st goal of the season and a 1-1 tie.
Kyrkostas didn’t take long into the 2nd period to earn his first career BCHL marker, coming just 3:09 into the middle frame with a power play goal. After taking a pass from Caron on the right wing, Kyrkostas drifted through the slot and fired a wrist shot through traffic from the top of the left circle that got passed Kendrick for the first Warriors lead of the game.
38 seconds after the goal, West Kelowna extended their lead to a pair of markers as another BCHL first came from Caden Kemkaran-Humble to give the Warriors a 3-1 edge. A terrific passing play from Owen Drury to Eliot Compton at the front of the net finished with Kemkaran-Humble knocking in a pass on the blocker side as West Kelowna took their first two-goal advantage of the contest.
Trail would not go away, however, and got the game back to within a goal as Adam Marshall tipped in a shot to make it a 3-2 game. Mathieu Cobetto-Roy took a shot from the left wing circle that was deflected through the legs of DellaRusso by Marshall at the 5:16 mark of the 2nd period that got the game to within one heading into the 3rd period.
The Warriors started the 3rd period similarly to how they did in the 2nd frame and right off a face-off as Jack Pridham pushed the lead back to two goals. Pridham got the puck at the edge of the right face-off circle and zipped a shot over the blocker shoulder of Kendrick just 1:31 into the 3rd period to give the Warriors a 4-2 lead.
The Smoke Eaters once again had an answer to get the game within a goal as Josh Schenk found the handle in the slot and threw the puck through traffic past the blocker side of DellaRusso at the 8:54 mark to push the score to 4-3 into the final stretch.
A late power play gave Trail some life in the 3rd period to try and get the game on even terms but a huge glove side by DellaRusso on Schenk in front of the net with two and a half minutes to play kept the West Kelowna lead intact before Michael Salandra closed the game with his 2nd goal of the season into the empty net at 18:35 to secure a 5-3 victory.
Matthew DellaRusso made 18 saves on 21 shots in his 1st career BCHL win in his 1st career start while Teagan Kendrick turned aside 34 of the 38 shots thrown his way in his 1st regulation loss of the season.
FINAL SCORE: 5-3 Warriors
SHOTS ON GOAL: 39-21 Warriors
WARRIORS PP: 1/4
WARRIORS PK: 4/4
3 STARS:
1) Felix Caron (1-1-2)
2) Isaiah Norlin (0-1-1)
3) Jackson Kyrkostas (1-1-2)
Fortis Energy Player of the Game: Brennan Nelson (0-1-1)
ATTENDANCE: 912
West Kelowna (3-1-0-0) will hit the road for a Friday night matchup in the Shuswap as they will take on the Salmon Arm Silverbacks (3-1-0-0) for the first time this season. Puck drop is slated for 7:00 PM from the Shaw Centre with the game being broadcasted live on the Warriors Mixlr channel as well as on FloHockey.