A week ago, a 2-1 home ice overtime win over the Aldergrove Kodiaks might have been considered an underwhelming performance by the Delta Ice Hawks. On Tuesday it generated a big sigh of relief.
Such is the vast different world of the Pacific Junior Hockey League playoffs where the defending champions have their hands full with the upstart seventh seed.
Third period goals from Kyle Uy and Jihwan Kim lifted the Ice Hawks to a much-needed victory in the best of seven quarter-final series after being surprisingly dominated for much of games one and two in 3-1 and 5-4 losses respectively. The teams are back at it tonight in Aldergrove, but at least the Hawks know they will return to Ladner on Sunday (7:30 p.m.) for game five.
That was hardly a certainty until Uy converted a power play opportunity and Kim took a terrific against-the-flow pass from Dario Esposito and wired home a shot to the top left corner. Plenty of anxious moments followed including the Kodiaks failing to convert a breakaway and capitalizing on a two-man advantage in the last couple of minutes thanks to some key saves from Jordy Engelson.
There are still lots of areas where the Hawks need to be better, starting with their top two lines having yet to produce a goal in this series at even strength. Delta was the highest scoring team in the league during the regular season at five-on-five.Yet at least there is something to build off of now against an opponent that looks far better than its .500 league record suggests.
“I was happy with the overall effort tonight. I thought the guys were more emotionally invested,” said GM and head coach Steve Robinson. “Our first 10 minutes were really good then we take a four-minute spearing penalty in the offensive zone (and they score on the power play). This is what we have been stressing to them. It’s a margin of error that’s so slight you can’t afford to make those kinds of mistakes. End of the day got us the one (win) we needed. Sometimes you have to find a way to grease one out.
“Aldergrove is playing well. Records go out the window. This whole 2-versus-7, they’re a .500 team thing. You know what? They are playing good hockey. They are not giving up a lot and they are heavily committed to their game plan. They are forechecking hard and doing lots of little things well.”
Should this series go the distance, games five, six and seven would be played on consecutive nights starting on Sunday.
