Playoff-bound Royals in the home stretch
VICTORIA 7 SPOKANE 3
Who is that scoring machine known as Scott Walford?
The defensive-minded blueliner, with a high floating shot from the point and a screen from forward Igor Martynov, scored the winning goal Tuesday night as the Victoria Royals snapped Spokane’s fivegame WHL winning streak with a 7-3 victory over the Chiefs at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
It took the Montreal Canadiens’ thirdround draft pick 64 games to score his first goal of the season, Saturday in Prince George. He now has two in two games.
“I hope there’s more to come,” Walford said.
“If not, I’ll continue contributing the way I do by making sure I’m good in our own zone, first and foremost.”
Walford’s winner came just 24 seconds after Kailer Yamamoto of Spokane tied the game 3-3 with a pure goal-scorer’s shot to the top corner at 4:22 of the third period.
No one is ever going to confuse Walford’s scoring touch with that of forward Yamamoto. The Edmonton Oilers’ first-rounder, and U.S. team 2018 world junior championship bronze medallist, began the season with nine games in the NHL with the Oilers.
“He is a great player and we have to minimize his chances,” Walford said.
But it was Walford who spearheaded the rally of four unanswered third period goals to lead Victoria to a record of 37-24-6 while Spokane fell to 38-22-5.
“When [Yamamoto] tied it, we collectively came together on the bench, and made sure to get it back,” said Walford.
Every point Royals captain Matthew Phillips now records will extend his singleseason franchise points record. He made it 106 points by burying a power-play shot high for his 45th goal on a two-point night. The assist came from Dante Hannoun, who also scored in a two-point game.
Jeff De Wit, returning from 11 games away to injury, also had a goal and assist. So did Noah Gregor, who scored for the sixth time in six games. St. Louis Blues-inked Tanner Kaspick added a goal and two assists and Tyler Soy two assists. Braydon Buziak scored the other goal as the Royals scored seven or more goals for the 10th game this season.
“We kept our poise and didn’t panic too much [after Yamamoto tied it 3-3] and believed in our skill, and made a few plays happen,” Phillips said.
The pro-ready Jaret Anderson-Dolan showed why the L.A. Kings chose him in the second round of the 2017 NHL draft by recording a goal and assist for the Chiefs.
With the 28-save performance, Griffen Outhouse became the Victoria/Chilliwack franchise all-time leader in victories by a goaltender with 85 (84-42-13 over 147 games from 2015 to the present) to eclipse the record of 84 he shared with Coleman Vollrath (84-48-10 in 165 games from 2012 to 2016).
The Royals’ 2017-18 schedule, which featured some lengthy and bizarre backtracking on road swings, is proving equally as confounding at home. The Tuesday game began a stretch in which Victoria will play four games in five nights on Blanshard Street. Try marketing that. Tuesday’s attendance was announced as 3,651.
Of Victoria’s final six regular-season games, starting Tuesday night, five are at home. The Royals and Chiefs meet again tonight at the Memorial Centre.
The Chiefs are locked into a first-round playoff match-up with the Portland Winterhawks in the second-versus-third U.S. Division bracket. The Chiefs are now trailing the Winterhawks by six points, with a game in hand, in the race for home-ice advantage in that looming first-round series.
Victoria won for the second consecutive game to move five points ahead of the Vancouver Giants in their race for homeice advantage in their potential first-round playoff series in the two-versus-three B.C. Division bracket. The Giants, resurgent after missing the playoffs the past three seasons, hold two games in hand on Victoria. The Royals moved two points behind the B.C. Division-leading Kelowna Rockets, who hold a game in hand with six games remaining to Victoria’s five.
ICE CHIPS: Sitting high up in the south end Tuesday night was Oilers VP of hockey operations Craig MacTavish, to check out the progress of Yamamoto and perhaps to scout Ty Smith, the Spokane blueliner ranked by Central Scouting for the first round of the 2018 NHL draft, in which the Oilers will be drafting much higher than they thought when this season began.