Blades blow early 3-0, fall to Dresden Kings
DRESDEN – For the first four-and-a-half minutes things looked pretty good
Friday night for that Blenheim Blades at the Ken Houston Memorial Arena in
Dresden.
With just 4:32 gone in the first period the Blades had grabbed a 3-0 lead over
the Kings in their Provincial Junior Hockey League Stobbs Division game, but
unfortunately there were still 55 minutes and 28 seconds to play, and the Kings
rallied back for a 5-4 victory before 297 fans.
The win gives the Kings a share of sixth place in the division with the Blades,
with both teams having 19 points – three behind the fifth-place Wheatley Sharks,
and two up on the eighth-place Petrolia Flyers.
The Blades will return to action Sunday night when they host the fourth-place
Essex ’73s at 7 p.m.at the Blenheim Memorial Arena.
As mentioned the Blades came out of the gate flying getting goals from Zach
vanBoxtel at 1:06, Sebastian Stubberfield at 2:27 and Nick Tetreault at 4:32.
For vanBoxtel the goal was his second of the season with an assist going to
former King Kyle Hachey.
Stubberfield netted his second as well, with an assist going to the newest Blade
Jaxon Boucher who just signed with the club Thursday night.
The third goal of the game was also the third of the season for Tetreault, with
Stubberfield and Hachey setting up the play.
Hachey has played three games so for the Blades and has a goal and two
assists.
It didn’t take long for the Kings to get on the board as Shane DePelsmaeker
found the Blenheim net at 6:57, and that goal wrapped up the scoring in the first
period.
Early in the second frame Blenheim again went up by a trio of goals as
defenceman Derek Hueni tallied a powerplay marker at 3:14, assisted by
vanBoxtel.
Dresden then controlled the rest of the period and tied things at 4-4 thanks to
goals by Andre Brett on a powerplay, Breck Rainey and Brantley Kuipers.
The third period was only 1:03 old when Chandler Glassford scored, on another
Dresden powerplay, what proved to be the winning goal for the Kings.
Halfway through the final 20 minutes the Blades had a great opportunity to tie
the game at 5-5 when forward Malcolm Campbell was awarded a penalty shot by
referee Andrew Garnham.
However Campbell, whose overtime goal November 10 in Blenheim gave
Blades a 6-5 win over the Kings, was stopped this time by Dresden netminder
Aiden Lucyk.
The Blades then ran into penalty trouble, something that has been a problem
all season, with Carter Wright getting a five-minute major and a game misconduct
for grabbing Brett’s facemask at 8:40, and his brother Connor being assessed a
major and a game misconduct for boarding at 16:20.
The Wright brothers will both sit out Sunday’s game with one-game
suspensions.
BLADES BITS: THE Kings outshot Blenheim 34-30, and were two-for-six on the
powerplay, while the Blades scored on their only powerplay chance…The annual
Blades Cash Club draw will be held Sunday…First prize is $1,000, second prize
$500, third prize $250, fourth prize $150, fifth prize $100, as well as five prizes of
$50 each…Tickets will be available in the lobby until the end of the first
period…The draws will be made at the start of the third period…Defenceman
Keegan MacVoy missed the game because of a university exam, while Ryan
Malott and Darby Lemieux remain out with injuries…The three stars of the game
were Brett, Kuipers and Hachey.
