The Last Start

Submitted by League Reporter, Jen Mutas

A week and a half after the official BCJALL season opener the New Westminster Salmonbellies finally got onto the schedule as they hosted the Langley Thunder, who were playing their fourth game of the season, and third on the road.

Despite losing the BC final to the Adanacs, New West made their mark on the 2009 season by scoring the most goals in the league in both the playoffs and regular season. Coming into the game Langley knew they would have to step up their scoring, as their total count of 17 goals over three games put them last in the league for the tally; and step up they did.

In the first period the Thunder would have six opportunities with the man advantage, and quite impressively converted five of those chances, surprising the home crowd at Queens Park. Every time New West would score a goal on Devon Winter, it seemed they would get booked and the Thunder would answer back with another power play goal.

After each team traded leads in the first the Thunder were down by three goals to start the second period, and Sean Lundstrom would continue the power play slaughter with two quick goals himself, followed by Langley’s first goal of the night at even strength courtesy of Brandon Bull. New West toned down the bad habits in the middle frame, keeping the penalties to just two in the second versus six in the first. That being said the Thunder converted both those chances and their special teams numbers seemed like they would have no end on the night. Three goals in the last half of the period restored New West’s lead and again they would be up by three going to the break.

The cherry on the special teams sundae for Langley would be rounding out their scoring in the third with a short-handed goal from Nick Stone who was set up beautifully by Colten Hayes, but New West used home floor to their advantage and threw four more goals in which was good enough for a final score of 15-10.

Shots on goal were high for both teams, making the game that much more interesting and of course resulting in the high score. New West peppered twenty-two shots on the Langley net in the opening period alone for a grand total of 52, and the Thunder were just ten shots behind at the end of the night. Keenan Lambright would relieve Devon Winter between the iron for Langley after the first period, and did quite well coming off the bench only allowing seven goals on thirty shots.

After scoring the ‘Bellies second goal of the game, and assisting on the third Eric Lewthwaite would go down hard and have a lot of trouble even attempting to get up. As he was being helped off the floor it appeared to look like a left knee injury, and he never returned to the bench. Jeff Sproule and Brandon Goodwin would mirror each other’s eight point night for the ‘Bellies, strangely enough both scoring two goals and six assists. Also with an eight point night (3 goals, 5 assists) Sean Lundstrom cleared two points past Nanaimo’s Cody Bremner for first spot in the BCJALL player standings.

With their seven goals scored on the power play Langley catapulted themselves to a tally of ‘lucky 13’ with the man advantage, which is another top spot in the league for power play goals (4 games). In the Thunders previous games this season their play seemed to fluctuate, whereas this game against New West was a solid sixty minute performance; tonight’s game was a lot closer on the floor than the final result, and Langley will hope to carry over their momentum as they host the Timbermen on Thursday.