All posts by Darryl Skender

Gens-GKings Preview

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The Comox Valley Glacier Kings are back in action tonight as they host the Oceanside Generals in one of four games on the VIJHL slate. The Glacier Kings will look to rebound after a 4-3 loss in Nanaimo on Thursday. The Generals, after a 12-0 blowout loss to Peninsula on Halloween, have rebounded to win their last two games including a 1-0 shutout in Campbell River last night. Braylon Becker scored the only goal of the game midway through the second period and Ethan Suhr picked up his first shutout of the season.

The Gens and the Glacier Kings both share one thing in common as neither team has a player in the top 20 in scoring. Ryken Lay is 23rd in the VIJHL with 10G, 8A in 19 games. Zaya Morro is tied for 24th with 6G, 11A also in 19 games. Oceanside does not have anyone that averages a point per game while Ethan Gobel is the only player on the home side to hit that mark (17pts in 14 games).

Special teams will be very interesting tonight. Comox Valley needs to start creating more opportunities as they have only had the man advantage twice in the last 3 games. Leon Mikhalchuk leads the team with 3 power play goals. As for the Generals, they’ve had 17 opportunities in their last 3 contests. Jacob Leamy, Ryder Bradford and Braylon Becker lead their squad with two each.

Power Play
Oceanside: 12.2% (10th)
Comox Valley: 16.3% (9th)

Penalty Kill
Oceanside: 77.8 (9th)
Comox Valley: 81.3 (6th)

The Glacier Kings are about .500 when it comes to Goals For and Goals Against (13 PPG For/12 PPG Against) so it’s really the even strength play that has been the difference for them this year. At even strength, (5 on 5, 4 on 4, 3 on 3, the shootout not included), they are -14. Head coach/GM Curtis Toneff emphasized that his team, especially some of the more experienced players need to get better, “I went back and did the plus/minus 5 on 5 for the whole season and there’s some guys that have been on the ice for maybe five 5 on 5 goals for and some of these are veteran guys. You can only stick with for so long before there’s a guy that comes along that you might want to give an opportunity to. They haven’t seized their opportunities.” In case you’re wondering, some of the best plus/minus players on the squad are Kyle Mayenburg, Landen May and Ethan Gobel.

Oceanside is one of the hottest teams in the VIJHL right now winning 5 of their last 6 games. It seems like just a month ago they were in last place in the division. Veteran play by play broadster and multiple winner of the “Broadcaster of the Year” award Kyle Ireland talked about what is key for his club, “The Gens need to stay out of the box… the PK worked overtime last night going 6/6 in Campbell River. They need to keep rollin’ on the road… 7-4 best record in the North. If the Gens continue to get great goaltending they will be very successful. Head coach Garrett Dunlop called all 3 goalies “our rocks” last night during a second intermission interview. Not sure who is dressing yet. The guys need to use their speed and have a great forecheck against a very well coached team.” Kyle then summed it all up with, “Three factors… speed, stay out of the box and continue to play well on the road.” He will be broadcasting the game on 88.5 The Beach. Meanwhile, Comox has a chance to get back to .500 on home ice tonight as they sport a 2-3-1-1 record. The GKings have played 12 of their 19 games on the road this season.

These 2 clubs have played twice this season with both sides winning once. On September 19th, the Gens took the match 4-3 while the Yeti came back to win the second on October 18th by a 2-0 score. Oceanside currently sits in second place in the North Division with an 11-8-0-0 record, one point behind Nanaimo and four ahead of third place Campbell River. Comox Valley (7-9-2-1) is now tied for 4th after Port Alberni’s win over Kerry Park last night. Puck drop is 6:30 PM at the Sports Centre. I have the Glacier Kings lineup posted on the “Gameday Lineups” page of this blog.

Darryl Skender

GKings Comeback Falls Short

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The Nanaimo Buccaneers scored three goals in the second period and held on for a 4-3 win over the Comox Valley Glacier Kings. The loss is the Glacier Kings second in a row and 3rd in their last 4 games while the Buccaneers won their 3rd straight and are now victorious in 5 of their last 6 contests.

It was a very even opening period which saw Nanaimo having a nice power play and with the Glacier Kings had big chances by Ethan Gobel and Westin Churchill. However it took almost 17 minutes before the first goal. Brandon Taylor took a shot from the point. It appeared that Westin Churchill may have got a stick on it to deflect it high in the air. The puck landed behind goaltender Aaron Pichette where Gavin Munro poked it into the net.

The lead wouldn’t last long. Less than 2 minutes later Jaxin Karst won an offensive zone faceoff. The puck would get tipped back to Dreyton Hayward at the blue line. The 5’9″ defenceman wristed a shot that went through a maze of bodies to beat Anthony Ganoung blocker side.

That goal made the score 1-1 and the period would end with that score. Shots were 11-7 in favor of Nanaimo.

In the second period, the Buccaneers would take their first lead of the game on an innocent looking play. Zach Spafford gave a 10 foot pass up to his own blue to Jack Barrett and by the time he got to center he skated between both defencemen to go in on a clear cut breakaway. Barrett quickly went backhand-forehand and beat Ganoung stick-side before the second period was three minutes old.

The Bucs made it 3-1 on a power play goal. Jaxin Karst won the faceoff and the puck subsequently never left the Glacier Kings zone after that. Madden Cruickshank eventually took a shot-pass to the side of the net where Porter Williamson deflected it behind the goalie.

Davis Young made it 4-1 with less than a minute to play in the 2nd period as he crept in from the blue line undetected and took a rink wide pass from Jaxin Karst and one-timed it between the arm and body of Ganoung.

The middle frame ended 4-1. Nanaimo outshot Comox 10-9.

Curtis Toneff must have fired the team up during the intermission because the Glacier Kings started off fast. After Nanaimo won the opening faceoff into their own zone, Comox Valley forechecked hard and Kyle Mayenburg did a good job keeping the puck in at the blue line. He directed the puck towards the net and a scramble ensued. Cameron Collins found a loose puck among the bodies and buried it past Pichette to make it 4-2.

That goal took 16 seconds from the drop of the puck. Unfortunately, the Yeti never got any momentum after that goal as Nanaimo tilted the ice afterwards dominating the play. However late in the 3rd period after Comox took a penalty, you could see that they were thinking offence. Cohen Kallin poked the puck off a Nanaimo stick at the Glacier Kings blue line then passed it up to Isaac Dunsire for a 2-man breakaway from center ice. Dunsire went in and snapped the puck past Pichette on the glove side for a shorthanded goal and it was suddenly 4-3.

Unfortunately the Yeti would take another penalty for “Too Many Men On The Ice” when they had possession inside the offensive zone with 19 seconds left. I’m guessing it was a good call because you could see the crowd and the Buccaneers bench pointing and yelling for a penalty. Pichette made a big save with 4 seconds left and that’s the way the game would end. Shots were 11-7 for the Bucs.

The win improves Nanaimo’s record to 11-5-1-0 for 23 points and are 3 points ahead of 2nd place Oceanside. Comox Valley drops to 7-9-2-1 for 17 points and remains in 4th place in the North. They will host the Oceanside Generals Saturday night. The Bucs are in Victoria on Sunday.

Other Observations:

  • Jaxin Karst had 3 assists to extend his point streak to 5 games (3G, 6A)
  • It took the Bucs 11 seconds to score their PP goal in the 2nd period after an offensive zone “Holding The Stick” penalty against the GKings.
  • Leon Mikhalchuk has 5G, 3A in his last 8 games.
  • The Yeti have only drawn 2 power plays in their last 200 minutes of hockey.
  • That was Gavin Munro’s first goal as a GKings player since coming over from Nanaimo. After his goal he pointed up to the stands at the NIC.
  • It was nice to see former Buc Brandon Taylor stick up for Thomas Scobie-Gyug after he got hit from behind. He went after the much bigger Rhys Wilcox who is 4″ taller and and 50 pounds heavier. He simply pushed him before getting into a scrum with Koen Gauthier where Taylor got his helmet taken off. I didn’t love that the referee making it a 4 on 4 instead of a PP for Comox.

  • Despite being outscored 3-0 in the second period, I thought it was a very even period. With that being said, I thought Nanaimo outplayed Comox in the 3rd despite being outscored 2-0.
  • Cameron Collins has 1G, 4A in his last 5 games.
  • Brandon Taylor picked up his first assist as a Glacier King with an assist.
  • The Yeti are 1-7-1-1 when trailing after the second period.
  • It is so refreshing to listen to Larenzo Jensen do play by play, a true professional, not biased, very descriptive. Good job Larenzo!

Darryl Skender

Comox – Nanaimo Preview

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Today couldn’t come fast enough for the Comox Valley Glacier Kings. After an 11-1 drubbing last Saturday night, they have been anxious to redeem themselves as quickly as possible. It will be a tough test however as they will be playing the best team in the VIJHL’s North Division. The Nanaimo Buccaneers come into the game with a solid 10-5-1-0 record which is one point ahead of the second place Oceanside Generals. Comox is 7-8-2-1 and 4th in the division. These two squad have played twice so far this season with both sides winning one game apiece. Nanaimo won on opening night (September 6th) 4-2 while the Yeti took the second match on September 27th by a score of 5-3. The Bucs are the highest scoring team in the North so it will be a tough task for a team that gave up so many goals in their last contest.

For the most part, the GKings penalty kill has been pretty good this season up until their last game when they gave up 4 goals on 5 Peninsula power plays. That dropped them from 1st to 8th place in the league. The power play has been streaky this year but has been non-existent the last couple games because they haven’t been getting any opportunities. In their past 2 games they have a total of 1 power play opportunity. I talked to head coach/GM Curtis Toneff about that. He says his club only have themselves to blame, “That should tell you a lot about our legs and our effort and our moving our feet. Any team in this league should have at least 4 power plays over the course of a game. I don’t think it was a ref thing either. It was our guys not working hard enough to draw any penalties. There was no second and third efforts. Sometimes those draw penalties. So in my opinion, that’s on our performance. I didn’t even love our performance on Friday night (in Lake Cowichan), I loved our finish but I didn’t love our performance on Friday overall.” The Buccaneers have the advantage in the special teams situations. Here is a look at the stats for each side:

Power Play
Nanaimo: 22.7% (3rd)
Comox Valley: 16.5% (8th)

Penalty Kill
Nanaimo: 84.3% (2nd)
Comox Valley: 81.7 (6th)

The Glacier Kings are desperate to get some scoring from anyone right now. One player that has shown he has an upside is Westin Churchill. Some games he looks like the best player on the ice than we don’t hear from him for a bit. Toneff says he likes what he can do offensively but knows he has more to do than what we’ve seen so far, “He’s a streaky scorer. Westin has shown a lot of flashes of someone that can do some damage in this league and be a difference maker. With Westin, he’s a busy kid, he goes to school, he works. For him it’s about managing his energy to be able to perform like that. He’s a guy who you can tell after 3 or 4 shifts if he’s going or not. And quite frankly he’s got to be going more than he has been this year. Points are great and all that but he’s got to be more consistent to be relied upon down the stretch night in and night out.” The consistency should come with maturity. Westin just turned 17 a month ago. He is 5th in team scoring with 4 goals and 5 assists.

The Bucs are led by Madden Cruickshank who has already amassed 9G, 15A in just 16 games so far. That ties him for 8th place among VIJHL scorers. Intersting, it’s a rookie 17 year old defenceman that is second on the team in scoring. Nate Barclay has been really good and very consistent. In fact he has at least 1 point in each of his last 8 games. That includes scoring 4G, 3A in his last 3 games… what!? In net, it’s former Glacier King Aaron Pichette getting the lionshare of the work. He sports a 6-3 record with a 2.41 GAA and .927 save percentage. That’s 4th and 3rd respectively in the entire league.

So Nanaimo has a better record, scores more goals, allows fewer goals and has better special teams than Comox Valley. They will definitely have their work cut out for them tonight. Curtis talked about what will be key for this evening, “It’s important to just not let anything slide any further. You have a terrible night last Saturday. It’s a chance for a bounce back, have a great first period as well as attitude and detail. I don’t know if there is any better place to do it than on the road against a divisional rival opponent. They’ll probably be looking to jump on us, jump on a team that is coming off a weak performance. We have to be ready to compete and get back to our game that helped us dig out of an 0-3 start. We have an even record with 90 percent of the league. It’s a good opportunity for us to get an upperhand on a season series against a good hockey club that’s done a great job this past year turning their trip around.” These two clubs will still have head to head match up once more in December, January and February.

A regulation win would move Comox within 2 points of the first place Bucs as well as propel them over Campbell River into sole possession of third place. As hard as I’ve been on the Glacier Kings lately, they are still well-positioned in the North Division. That’s due to winning 4 of their last 6 contests. A good start is paramount. Remember they gave up 6 goals in the first 11 minutes last Saturday. When the Yeti score first, they are 4-2-1 this season. Anthony Ganoung will get the start in net. Puck drop is at 7:15 PM at the NIC. Comox Valley’s line up for tonight is up on the Gameday Lineups page of this blog. Have a good one everybody!

Darryl Skender