Caedan Bankier takes a faceoff against Riley Gannon of the Victoria Royals on Jan 27, 2023. (Photo via Gord Rufh)
A four point night from Matthew Seminoff led the Kamloops Blazers to a 7-4 win in the first of back-to-back games against the Victoria Royals Friday night.
The Blazers were up 3-0 with two goals from Seminoff and one from Logan Stankoven – who extended his point streak to 28 games – before Victoria pulled one back late in the first period through Robin Sapousek.
Caedan Bankier restored the three goal lead in the dying seconds of the period to put the Blazers up 3-1 after 20 minutes.
Our guy @LoganStankoven with the quick steal and tuck.
3-0 Blazers
#whl #blazernation pic.twitter.com/0X1C6zD8Fj
— Kamloops Blazers (@blazerhockey) January 28, 2023
The Royals responded in the second through Alex Edwards who made it a 4-2 game before a pair of goals from Fraser Minten put the Blazers in cruise control, up 6-2 just before the midway mark of the game.
And it’s 6-2 Blazers
— Kamloops Blazers (@blazerhockey) January 28, 2023
Victoria weren’t done though with goals from Riley Gannon and Teydon Trembecky brough the tilt back to a two goal affair after 40 minutes of action from the Save-On-Foods Memorial Arena.
“We [have] to learn a couple of things, the second wasn’t very good,” Seminoff said, post game. “We know we have to do better so tomorrow we’re going to improve on that. We’ve been putting up a lot of shots lately, so to see them go in is always nice.”
Stankoven, who finished with a three point night, scored the only goal of the third period into the empty net to seal the win for the Blazers, who improve to a 27-9-4-2 record on the season. Victoria drops to the basement of the B.C. Division with a 13-28-4-1 record.
Icing on the cake @LoganStankoven pic.twitter.com/nbeqMosxu8
— Kamloops Blazers (@blazerhockey) January 28, 2023
“I thought first period we played really well but the second period again, [there were] a little bit of spurts and when we’re not at the top of our game, we let other teams back in it,” Blazers Associate Coach, Don Hay, said, on After the Buzzer. ”
Then in the third period, I thought we played pretty well. We killed off a big penalty kill, a four minute kill, with ten minutes to go, that was a big part of the game I thought.”
Like Stankoven, fellow World Junior goal medalist, Olen Zellweger, had a three point night with three assists, while Minten had an assist to go with his goals, giving him a three point night as well.
Dylan Ernst turned aside 26 of the 30 shots he faced to take the win, while Braden Holt made 39 saves in a losing effort.
Kamloops’ league-best power play went two for five on the night, while Victoria were one for three.
“Our power play was good,” Hay added.
“We had good performances from a lot of people, but I think the big thing is we have to learn or value shutting down teams, really closing them down and not giving them any kind of life or hope to get back into the game, I thought we didn’t do that as well as we should do.”
The two teams will rematch on Saturday night before the Blazers return home to host the Portland Winterhawks on Wednesday, Feb. 1, and the Prince Albert Raiders on Friday, Feb. 3.
