The Victoria Grizzlies left the door ajar a crack on Friday night and the Alberni Valley Bulldogs will have a chance to kick it wide open tonight.
Victoria dropped a 6-2 stinker to the Powell River Kings at The Q Centre giving the advantage to the Bulldogs as the two teams are tied at 50 points and are wrestling for the last playoff spot in the B.C. Hockey League’s Island Division.
Alberni Valley has two games remaining — tonight and tomorrow against the same Kings — while the Grizzlies wrap it up on Sunday afternoon in Chilliwack.
Victoria has the tie-breaker with overall wins and is hoping to get into that first-round post-season matchup against the Nanaimo Clippers, who finished first in the division. Powell River will face Cowichan Valley in the other Island series.
It was a sloppy mess defensively for the Grizzlies, with as many cough-ups as there were prize giveaways on fan appreciation night — costly mistakes at the most inopportune times, especially in the first period.
“If we made a mistake it was in the back of our net,” said disappointed and disgruntled Grizzlies general manager and head coach Craig Didmon, who blamed himself for second-guessing on goaltending. “For whatever reason this year, you go with a hunch and it seems to be the wrong one.”
But he stressed he wasn’t pinning it on the netminding, which was left helpless on glaring errors.
“We made some mistakes early, they ended up in the back of our net and we couldn’t recover,” said Didmon. “At the end of the day, you can’t make those mistakes in this league. Especially when you’re desperate like that and trying to get yourself in the playoffs — you have to play stingy hockey.
“We veer away from the plan when things aren’t going our way and that’s what happened tonight.”
The Kings struck just 14 seconds in as Gavin Rauser bounced the puck in off Grizzlies goaltender Mitchel Benson from the side of the net. Alex Peck got it right back for Victoria at 1:27, but Austin Kamer and Nick Halagian scored goals 2:16 apart late in the first for the visitors.
Benson was pulled in favour of Matthew Galajda to start the second and the Grizz scored just 1:07 in as Tyler Welsh cut it to 3-2. But less than a minute later Nick Halagian restored the two-goal Kings’ lead and they never looked back.
Kyle Betts scored on a power play late in the second and Kamer added his second of the night in the third for the Kings, who were 0-3 against the Grizzlies in Victoria up until Friday night. The Grizzlies won the season series 5-3, but this was the most critical matchup of the eight.
Jeff Smith made 32 saves for Powell River, many late in the second period when the Kings went into a defensive spin.
Benson stopped 12 shots and Galajda turned away 26 of 29.
It was also the fourth home game of the month for the Grizzlies, who donned Salsa jerseys throughout February, and they went winless with them on.
