What was key in their first series win will naturally be magnified in the next one.
The Grandview Steelers will use a similar scheme against the North Van Wolf Pack that helped them take down the Richmond Sockeyes, a series that ended last Thursday with a tightly played 3-1 victory in Richmond.
Limiting the Wolf Pack to three goals a game or less is the goal heading into the Pacific Junior B Hockey League’s semi-final series, which starts Saturday, 7 p.m. at the Harry Jerome Rec Centre in North Van, with Game 2 on Sunday, 7:15 p.m. at the Burnaby Winter Club.
“They have some similarities to Richmond in that they are fast skating, they have a very good powerplay, but they’re younger,” said Grandview coach Stevan Matic. “We’re a little bit older and we have to be hungrier and disciplined.”
North Van, which dispatched Ridge Meadows in five games after posting the league’s best record during the regular season, has the most potent powerplay at a near 30 per cent success rate.
The Pack also had the best offensive and defensive numbers overall and in head-to-head play took three of four games from the Steelers.
“I’m sure both teams will be aggressive; you have to be in the playoffs,” said Matic. “But we need to do it and keep them off the powerplay.”
Getting past the higher-seeded Sockeyes 4-1 wasn’t the surprise for Matic. It was beating them three times at Minoru Arena.
“We were ready for a seven-game series and they had a very good home-ice record,” said Matic of Richmond. “The big difference was that we got exceptional goaltending when we needed it, and our powerplay scored some crucial goals.”
Timely goals, too. Ethan Reilly’s powerplay marker in the decisive win came with just four seconds remaining in the sec-ond period. It also stood up as the winner.
“It was a bounce-back goal as Richmond had scored to tie it on the powerplay just a few minutes earlier,” explained Matic. “It was a great effort by Reilly to get into the dirty area, get the rebound off (the goalie’s) pad and slide it in.”
Tomislav Zlomislic counted the team’s other two goals.
Netminder Cale Dolan was named the game’s first star, turning aside 45 shots.
“(Richmond) definitely put pucks on the net, and although not all of them were hard ones, (Dolan) made some big saves, including a huge one with four minutes left off (Richmond’s Isaac Embree),” said Matic.
Game 3 is scheduled for Wednesday, March 6 at the Burnaby Winter Club.
