SATURDAY DUB/SJ PLAYOFF ROUND-UP
RED DEER, Alta. – Riley Ginnell scored 7:16 into overtime to give the Brandon Wheat Kings a 2-1 victory over the Red Deer Rebels Saturday, evening up their first-round WHL playoff series at 1-1.
Wheat Kings goalie Ethan Kruger stopped 38 of the 39 shots he faced to get the win.
Brandon’s Nate Danielson opened the scoring at 17:12 of the second period. The Rebels would tie the game up on a Frantisek Formanek goal at the 4:30 mark of the third period.
Chase Coward made 28 saves in the Red Deer defeat.
The series will resume Tuesday in Brandon, MB.
Elsewhere in WHL playoff action Saturday, the Seattle Thunderbirds took a 2-0 series lead over the Kelowna Rockets with a 7-3 win, the Edmonton Oil Kings also went up 2-0 after thumping the Lethbridge Hurricanes 4-0, the Moose Jaw Warriors beat the Saskatoon Blades 5-3 to go up 2-0, the Winnipeg Ice went up 2-0 with a 5-2 victory over the Prince Albert Raiders, the Everett Silvertips tied up their series with Vancouver Giants with a 7-3 thrashing, the Kamloops Blazers topped the Spokane Chiefs 6-2 to improve to 2-0 in their series, and the Portland Winterhawks also took a 2-0 series lead over the Prince George Cougars with a 2-1 win.
ESTEVAN – Thanks to a rare late April snow storm, Game 2 of the SJHL Championship had to survive a pair of lengthy delays, an hour at the start of the game, and about half that again near the end of the first period. But through all that adversity, it was the Estevan Bruins coming out on top, 2-0, and also take a 2-0 series lead in their Best-of-Seven final with Flin Flon.
Boston Bilous stopped all 26 shots he faced for his first shutout of the post-season, but it was his tenth straight win, lowering his goals against average to 1.48, and bumping the save percentage up to .943%.
Olivier Pouliot did all the damage offensively in Game 2, opening the scoring just over a minute into the second period, and then the Rimouski, Quebec product added one more into an empty net with 25 seconds left in the game. Pouliot’s eight goals (tied with teammate Eric Pearce) and 19-points both lead the SJHL playoffs.
The series moves to the Whitney Forum in Flin Flon for Games 3 and 4 on Tuesday and Wednesday.
(CP, SJHL.ca)
