The Smoke Eaters hold on in dramatic fashion to take a 5-4 thriller over the Salmon Arm Silverbacks!
The Smoke Eaters after allowing the first goal and weathered a strom in the middle part of the 1st, but came out with a 3-1 after twenty minutes. Dom Garozzo opened the scoring for Salmon Arm as the puck came through the crease and was shot in blocker side on Logan Terness to give the Back the lead. A lead that didn’t last as just 43s later the captain would put one past Ethan Langenegger to tie things up. Then at 16:49 Tyler Ghirardosi ripped one glove side on Langenegger to make it 2-1. Then with a 1:16 left in the first Kent Johnson would score on the power play, as his shot from the point went off a Silverbacks leg and into the net to give the Smoke Eaters a 3-1 going to the 1st intermission.
In the 2nd it was back and forth. Salmon Arm would score at 9:02 to make it 3-2 as Rybarik beat Terness. The Smokies would answer at 13:15 as Ghirardosi got his second of the night on the power play as he knocked dow the shot from Lapointe. Then 26s later Drew Bennet would score to make it 4-3 on a scramble in front of the Smoke Eaters net. The back and forth continued as at 16:39, Walker Erickson with his second would score on a break away going bar down for what would be the eventual game winner. The Backs would get close with a late second period goal at 17:53, as Bennet got his second again on a scramble in tight. The Smoke Eaters finished the second period with only 2 shots on net, but two goals.
In the third the Smokies bent but didn’t break. As the Backs put 13 more shots on net and including a penalty shot in the last second of the game but Logan Terness, who stopped 40/44 shots had a save of the year candidate just moments before , then stopped the penalty shot for the win.
The Smoke Eaters went 2/2 on the power play and went 2/2 on the penalty kill. They’ll reset for a rematch tomorrow night at 6pm against the same Silverbacks team
