Lucky Thirteen?

As a kid, when you hit thirteen- it's like hitting the jackpot. You're on your way to adult-hood, trusted with more responsibility, and things start to make more sense. It's been thirteen long years since the Saints have beat the Lakers in Junior A, and what better way to do it then game two of the quarter finals.

In game one of the series the Lakers took the win at home by a score of 8-4. They played with confidence and made Port Coquitlam play up to their standard. For game two, the arena in Poco was jammed with fans and the atmosphere was intense.

The Saints would jump ahead first with a goal from Matt Laustrap, but on a delayed slashing penalty Brock Armour would tie it up for the Lakers with the extra attacker. Jordan Flaman would make sure the Saints finished the first with a 2-1 lead when he got a great feed from Jesse Rougeau with just a couple of minutes left. The Saints ended the first with penalty trouble which is not what they wanted, but managed to hold the Lakers off, even into the second.

PoCo continued their hustle in the middle frame and looked very focused. Burnaby would start their comeback halfway through the second starting with a power play goal from Dane Stevens and two even strength goals from Lindsay Flynn and Shaun Dhaliwal. 

The Saints kept the score close with goals from Trevor Evans and Martin Cummings and the second would end with a four-four tie. 

PoCo seemed to figure out Burnaby's runners on the floor and in the third they focused on cracking Laker goalie Tom Wray. A bad bounce off the post from Brandon Bortignon would be the start of Wray's troubles in the third; Scott Jones, Matt Laustrap and Martin Cummings would all crack Wrays confidence and Scott Lowe came in to relieve him with thirteen minutes left. 

Ryan Kwasnica had a scoring touch in with the Adanacs and he brought it over to the Saints at trade deadline, scoring just a couple of minutes after the goalie change. Dayne Michaud was playing in his 114th game as a Poco Saint, but got his team into trouble with some undisciplined penalties including the hold that prompted a power play goal from Shaun Dhaliwal. Dhaliwal would score again for the hat trick, and teammate Cam Appels would beat Tyson Cornfield as well, but it seemed the barrage of goals Poco scored earlier would be too much to overcome. 

Game two of the quarterfinals would go the Saints to even up the best of five series. Final score was 10-7. 

Hats off to Poco for making the series interesting and using home-arena advantage. Game three should be just as physical and mental, and make for another great game in the hunt for the Minto Cup.

Saints head coach Karl Christiansen is proud his team had the determination to finish off the win. "We played our style of game and our guys did a true gut check coming out and playing the way they can. We expect the series to continue to be physical and demanding. We are ready for the challenge knowing Burnaby will make the adjustments to counter the way we played. We just need to be prepared for them"

Game three is at Bill Copeland Arena Sunday July 20th at 7PM