Bellerive, Hurricanes bounce back
For a few minutes, a hushed crowd of 3,680 at the Enmax Centre wondered if Jordy Bellerive’s night was over, or worse. It didn’t take long for the Lethbridge Hurricanes captain to deliver the answer as Bellerive scored his 40th goal of the season that also stood up as the game-winner as the Canes defeated the Kootenay Ice 5-2 during Western Hockey League play on a snowy Saturday night.
Still, the moments prior to that were tense as Bellerive took a knee-on-knee hit from Kootenay’s Martin Bodak just inside the Ice blueline with 2:57 left in the second period and the game tied 2-2. After staying down for a few minutes, Bellerive skated off the ice on his own and went down the tunnel at the Hurricanes bench.
Bodak was assessed a kneeing major and a game misconduct and on the ensuing power play Bellerive buried his 40th of the season with 18 seconds left in the middle stanza for what eventually stood up as the winner. Lethbridge improves to 28-24-6-0 with the victory, three points back of the Central Division-leading Medicine Hat Tigers.
“I’m not sure what the guy was thinking, but it kind of fueled the fire to get it back,” said Bellerive, who went on to score his 41st of the season on an emptynetter buzzer beater that actually went to video review before being ruled a goal. “The bench was giving it to me about being a baby. It felt pretty good to get one back.”
After the Hurricanes lit up the Saskatoon Blades to the tune of four goals in the opening 5:02 of Friday night’s win, it was the Ice who got on the board early as Cameron Hausinger and Gillian Kohler — on the power play — scored for Kootenay for a 2-0 lead 5:04 in.
The Canes pressed with some mid-period chances and finally broke through with 6:48 left in the first as Dylan Cozens swatted home a rebound off a point shot from Calen Addison to cut Kootenay’s lead to 2-1.
The Canes went to the power play late in the second and tied it up as Brad Morrison’s onetimer off a feed from Zane Franklin squeaked past Ice goaltender Matt Berlin and wriggled over the line to make it 2-2 with 6:48 remaining in the first.
“They got a couple of weird ones right off the start and kind of put us in a difficult situation,” said Bellerive. “But Coz got us on the board, which was huge for us. We got a little momentum from that and got another one and kind of took over from there.”
Then with the Canes enjoying a five-minute power play late in the second, Bellerive hit the 40-goal mark.
“We were kind of struggling toward the end of the power play with our unit, it was just simplifying it,” he said. “(Jake) Elmer kicked it over to me and I thought ‘Why not? I gave it a shot and caught the goalie off guard.”
After a scoreless first half of the third periodz, Jadon Joseph doubled the Hurricanes lead with 5:16 left in regulation with his seventh of the season.
Then came Bellerive’s empty-netter buzzer beater that was so close he only found out it counted after the players had filed off the ice.
“Did it count at the end?” he asked. “It was a great, selfless play by Morrison to look for me that late. That’s the kind of guy he is, always looking for me regardless of the situation. I just grabbed the puck and got it on net as fast as I could.”
Hurricanes goaltender Logan Flodell topped 29 shots in the win.
Morrison had a twopoint night after setting up Bellerive’s emptynetter, while Elmer had two assists.
The Ice and Hurricanes hook back up this afternoon in Cranbrook at 4 p.m., local time.