The Smoke Eaters will look to make it another successful weekend as they look for win number 31 tonight against the Wenatchee Wild.
Regular season verse Wenatchee
September 20th @ Town Toyota Centre 3-1L (BOXSCORE)
October 30th @ Trail Memorial Centre 5-1W (BOXCSORE)
December 11th @ Trail Memorial Centre 3-1 W (BOXSCORE)
January 24th @ Town Toyota Centre 4-3 W (BOXSCORE)
January 25th @ Town Toyota Centre 7:05pm
January 31st @ Trail Memorial Centre 7pm
It wasn’t pretty when compared to some of their previous wins, but the Smoke Eaters got it done Friday night in Wenatchee. Michael Colella scored the game winner in a comeback win part way through the third on a great set up from Kent Johnson. Now up to 64 points on the year the Smoke Eaters will look to keep the momentum going tonight against the Wild. The penalty killers once again got a work out as the Smoke Eaters were short handed seven different times in Friday’s game. To make matters worse one of their top penalty killers in Connor Sweeney was assessed another game misconduct that put the Smokies down a forward for two periods. Johnson and Philippe Lapointe both filled in on the Smoke Eaters penalty kill that kept Wenatchee off the board in the second and third. That will be a focus tonight, for Trail to stay out of the box. Matteo Paler-Chow made some big saves on the penalty kill but for a power play as dangerous as the Wilds, they’ll want to limit the opportunities tonight.
Last ten games: 9-1-0
Smoke Eaters leading scorers:
Johnson (34-51-85)
Ozar (20-37-57)
Colella (20-35-55)
Lapointe (17-28-45)
DiMurro (6-27-33)
The Wild will be looking at missed opportunities from Friday night as a reason they were unable to pick up any points against the Smoke Eaters. The Wild often tried, and succeeded, with a neutral zone cross ice pass, which opened the game up and gave the Wild some promising rushes up the wings. But with seven power play opportunities they’ll know they should have cashed in. Wenatchee may be without their captain Brian Adams after his fall in the corner with Sweeney, Adams also left the game and didn’t return. The Wild wrap up their four game home-stand and will look to break even with a 1W-2L record through three games so far.
Last ten games 5-5-0
Wild leading scorers:
Cafarelli (16-23-39)
Adams (19-18-37)
Chorske (16-16-32)
Young (7-25-32)
Bavaro (8-17-25)
It’s part 2 of the weekend doubleheader in Wenatchee as the Smoke Eaters look to make it five wins in a row. Make sure to catch the broadcast with Ben Phillips starting at 6:50pm on HockeyTV and Mixlr.
