The Smoke Eaters will have to settle for 3 of 4 points on the weekend, improve to 13-1-1-1 over their last 16 games, after a tight nit game between these two interior division rivals.
The Smoke Eaters once again had to weather the Salmon Arm storm in the opening minutes as the Backs came out, like they did on Friday night, dominating the opening minute. As the period went on the chances were even on each side, but it was the Silverbacks who opened the scoring. Nick Martino was the man to beat Logan Terness in the first as he put one under the arm of Terness at 9:38 of the first. The Smoke Eaters had plenty of chances to then tie the game but Ethan Langenegger stood tall and stopped all ten shots he faced.
In the second it was a goaltending show as Terness and Langenegger came up with some big saves. Philippe Lapointe with his 5th of the year would get the Smoke Eaters on the board as he got a breakaway pass on the powerplay, making no mistake going five hole on Langenegger.
We’d stayed tied 1-1 all the way to the shootout, but the Smoke Eaters will be looking at a missed chances with a 5-on-3 late in the third, that carried into overtime. But Langenegger made some big saves that forced the shootout. The Smoke Eaters were 3/3 on shootouts coming into the game but were unable to get one past Langenegger, who came up with the saves on Ozar and Johnson. While Unruh and Poirier were able to beat Terness to get the extra point for Salmon Arm.
The Smoke Eaters don’t have much time to dwell on it though as they go back to Penticton on Wednesday night to play the Vees starting at 6:30
