Highlights of Fridays game
Royals sweep Rockets in overtime
Royals sweep Rockets in overtime
BY CLEVE DHEENSAW, TIMES COLONIST OCTOBER 15, 2011 10:34 PM
Kevin Sundher showed Saturday night why he eventually may turn out to be the first Victoria Royals player to reach the NHL.
His four-point night, capped by a brilliant assist on Jesse Zgraggen’s winning goal in overtime at 35 seconds, gave the Royals a 4-3 Western Hockey League victory over the Kelowna Rockets before 6,049 fans at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
“The guys are getting open for me,” said Sundher, a third-round Buffalo Sabres’ draft pick.
“And we have guys who can finish,” added the native of Surrey, who leads the WHL with 17 assists and is tied for the league scoring lead at 21 points with Mark Stone of Brandon and Emerson Etem of Medicine Hat.
Not high among the polished finishers is defensive-oriented blue-liner Zgraggen, who scored his first goal.
“We talked about it before that Jesse said he wanted to get his first goal of the season,” said Sundher.
“He’s such a hard working guy. He buried it. He made sure he hit the back of the net.”
Zgraggen said he had faith in Sundher’s passing eye.
“Kevin is such a good player and I trusted he would get it to me exactly where I needed it on the stick when I slid down the wall,” said Zgraggen, as the Royals (6-5) swept the two-game set against Kelowna.
The Rockets (3-4-1) are among the more successful WHL franchises and the single point snapped an uncharacteristic four-game losing streak.
It took just 19 seconds for Victoria’s top line of Sundher, Robin Soudek and Austin Carroll to make themselves heard as Soudek counted his eighth of the season to open the scoring.
But if the Royals scored early, they didn’t score often over the first two periods.
Shane McColgan, a 2011 fifth-round draft pick of the New York Rangers, pick scored shorthanded for Kelowna at 15:05 of first period to tie it 1-1.
A tepid second period was enlivened by Sundher’s slicing to the net for his fourth goal of the season at 16:33. But it didn’t take long for Kelowna’s Tyson Baillie to level matters 2-2 at 17:44.
That set the stage for the dramatics to come.
Cody Chikie snuck home a wrap-around at 8:22 of the third period to put Kelowna ahead by one. Captain and Royals rearguard Hayden Rintoul got that back on the power play at 10:02.
Zgraggen said he has thrived being paired with the veteran 20-year-old Rintoul.
“Being with Hayden gives me a little more room to make mistakes and slide up into the play when I can,” he said.
Like he did in overtime.
Both goaltenders did workman-like jobs with Keith Hamilton making 30 saves in goal for Victoria and Jordon Cooke 32 for Kelowna.