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Steelheads sweep Ice Demons

The Steelheads got two late goals from captain Daryl Young on Saturday night to put them through to the next round of the CIHL playoffs.
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The Steelheads beat the Ice Demons in two straight to move on to the CIHL West final

he Steelheads are moving on to the next round of the CIHL playoffs.

The Kitimat Ice Demons came to town last weekend with their backs up against the wall, down 1-0 in the best-of-three CIHL quarterfinal, but it was the Steelheads that looked like the hungrier team on Saturday night.

If not for a goaltending performance for the ages from Ice Demons’ netminder Brett Vilness, the two teams could have easily been heading for a third winner-take-all game three on Sunday afternoon.

In the beginning, end-to-end rushes gave way to a series of turnovers and sloppy play in the latter half of the first.

The Steelheads tried to capitalize on pinching Ice Demons’ defenders, sending a forward in behind them and opting to try long breakaway passes.  To some extent the strategy worked, but the Ice Demons defence always recovered at the last minute to thwart the chance.

It looked as if the teams would head into the first intermission scoreless, but with two minutes left in the period, Stu Barnes forced an errant Ice Demons pass in their defensive zone. Randall Groot generated a turnover off the pass and slid it to Adam DeVries in front of the net.

DeVries put a move on a Vilness and tapped it into the back of the next for the 1-0 lead.

The shots finished 14-9 for the Steelheads.

At the beginning of the second the Ice Demons pushed back, and probably had their best chances of the game.

At the two-minute mark, Ice Demons’ forwards Nick Markowsky and Derek Delisser generated a turnover off a hard forecheck in the corners and passed the puck to assistant captain Ian Coleman, who ripped  a shot from the high slot past Tyler Perreault to even the score at one.

The Ice Demons outshot the Steelheads 3-1 in the first eight minutes, and generally held the play.

At the halfway mark of the period the Steelheads returned to their dominating ways.

The Ice Demons barely entered the zone in the last 10 minutes and only tallied one shot on goal.

Brett Vilness was the story, though. The Steelheads continued to pepper him with high-quality shots, but they couldn’t find the back of the net.

After 40 minutes it was still 1-1, the Steelheads outshooting the Ice Demons 28-13 after holding the visitors to only four shots in the period.

The same story played out in the third.

The Steelheads carried the play, but Vilness was up to the challenge.

After generating little success with the stretch pass, the Steelheads opted for a more traditional approach in the third period. They ground hard in the corners, worked the puck down low and opened up the points for screened shots from the defencemen.

“[The stretch pass] not something we normally do,” head coach Tom DeVries said.

“But the guys were open so we kept trying to hit them with that pass. After the second it wasn’t working so we just decided to lay off it.”

Still tied at one with just over 10 minutes left, captain Daryl Young pumped up the troops on the bench.

“I was just telling them that we can’t sit back,” Young said.

“We knew we had the better team, we knew we had more energy because they were short.”

“I just said let’s play simple, get back to playing our game and it worked out for us.”

Young took his own words to heart.

With time ticking down and overtime looming, Young charged up the ice and fired three quick shots on Vilness.

The first was blocked, the second bounced back off Vilness’ pad and the third one whipped by him into the top corner to give the Steelheads the one-goal lead.

“When he rushed up the ice with that puck, you could tell he had a chip on his shoulder, he looked determined to score,” Tom DeVries said.

A few nervous minutes ticked off the clock, but the Ice Demons could barely enter the Steelheads zone in the dying moments.

Young buried his second of the game into an empty net with 30 seconds left to clinch the 3-1 win and put the Steelheads into the semifinals.

Now the Steelheads will get set to face the Terrace River Kings, in the CIHL west division final, after they came back in their best-of-three series against Prince Rupert to win 2-1.

It’s going to be a tough matchup for the Steelheads, they dropped all three games against Terrace this season by a combined score of 12-7.

But rather than hoping for an easier matchup against Prince Rupert, the Steelheads are relishing the challenge of beating a team that’s gotten the best of them this season.

“This matchup is great, we love it,” DeVries said.

“I talked to a few guys last night and they all wanted to play Terrace.

“They are the top team this year and to be the best you have to beat the best.”

Terrace finished the season in first place with a 12-5-1 record, one point up on the Steelheads.

Their 97 goals for was good enough for first in the West Division and their 59 goals against was first overall in the CIHL.

River Kings’ assistant captain Josh Murray will be the player to watch. He finished third in CIHL with 36 points (18-16-36) in 18 games.

Like their matchup against Kitimat, DeVries thinks the key will be staying out of the box.

“We just have to go out there and play our own game, hopefully not take too many penalties.”

DeVries expects another full lineup for the first game of the series next Saturday at home.

“We should have a similar lineup to the one we had this weekend, with three to four lines good to go.”

Sparkplug Calvin Johnson will likely miss the game because of out-of-town work.

Games two and three (if necessary) will take place in Terrace the following weekend.

Around the league, the Quesnel Kangaroos came back from a 1-0 deficit to defeat the Houston Luckies 2-1 in their best-of-three series and the Williams Lake Stampeders finished off the Lac La Hache Tomahawks in two straight to move on to the east finals.