The Trail Smoke Eaters knocked off the Vipers 3-2 on Saturday night as they take all four points over the Vipers, sweeping the weekend series and improving to 16-1-1-1 over the last 19 games.
The Smoke Eaters got a gift to start the first period as the Vipers took a warm-up violation penalty, giving Trail a power play to start the game. Ultimately the Smoke Eaters weren’t able to convert and as the penalty expired the Vipers would open the scoring. Cameron MacDonald would get his 7th of the year for the Vipers as he redirected a shot from Christian Felton through the legs of Logan Terness at 2:33 of the first period. The Smoke Eaters would make amends though as Philippe Lapointe would score his eighth of the year at 18:05 of the first on the power play, as he redirected the shot from Kent Johnson from the point.
In the second the Vipers came out and had the Smoke Eaters stuck in their own end for much of the period. But Terness came up with some big saves as he faced 18 shots in the 2nd period. The Vipers would finally get one past Terness in the dying seconds of the period. Matt Kowalski would go short side top corner on Terness with 17s left in the second sending the Vipers to the 3rd up 2-1.
In the third it was the Tyler Ghirardosi show. The Smokies came out with a new energy that had been missing in the opening 40 minutes. Just as the Vipers penalty had expired Lapointe found Ghirardosi in the slot to tie the game at two. Three minutes later it was Ghirardosi again as he came across the blue line, slapped one off the glove of James Porter to make it 3-2 and stand as the game winner. Ghirardosi who moves to 97 career BCHL points was named the first star, Lapointe was given the second and Terness was name Energy player of the game.
The Smoke Eaters hit the road now for four games starting Friday in Powell River against the Kings. They are back home November 22nd when they host the Langley Rivermen.
