Thunder and Lakers End in a Tie

After last night's tough loss to the Coquitlam Adanacs, the Langley Thunder look to take the positives out of that game and bring it into their game against the Burnaby Lakers on Thursday night. Both teams have been struggling in the goal scoring department, but there were goals a plenty in this game.

The Thunder came out guns blazing as they got two goals from Duston Doudelet and a goal from James Rahe just over two minutes into the first period.

If going down 3-0 that early doesn't wake you up, I don't know what does, but it certainly woke up the Lakers as Tyler Kirkby scored eight seconds after the Thunder's third goal. The Lakers got an opportunity to even up the score when Thunder's Stefan Cirillo received four minutes for checking from behind, but the Lakers couldn't get anything going as all their shots were going high and wide.

The Thunder took over the game again when Rahe and Dobray scored at 11:09 and 13:53 to give the Thunder a 5-1 lead, but there was no quit in the Lakers. Lakers' Justin Appels and Aidan Milburn scored a minute apart from each other to cut the Thunder's lead to 2.

Thunder's Danny Spade received two minutes for high sticking with 17 seconds remaining in the period and with two seconds left in the period, Milburn picked up a rebound and scored his second of the game to cut the Thunder lead to 1 heading into the second period.

It looked like the Thunder started to feel the after effects from the Adanacs game in the second period.

Dobray did score at 3:31 to give the Thunder a 6-4 lead, but then it was all Lakers after that. Milburn scored his third of the game at 4:42 and while Lakers' Derek Cristiano was in the box for holding, Kirkby didn't hold back on the penalty kill as he scored five hole on Steven Mayervich to make it a tie game.

Kirkby didn't stop there though. With Thunder's Greg Finley in the box, Kirkby capitalized on the powerplay, going five hole again on Mayervich. Just a few minutes later, the Thunder continued to make the Lakers lives a little easier when Brodie Porter got four minutes for checking from behind. It didn't take long for the Lakers to score on the powerplay, with the goal coming from, you guessed it, Kirkby, making it 8-6 Lakers.

The Thunder got some luck on their side at 13:11 when a shot came off the glass and went off Lakers' goaltender Aiden Yorke and into the net. The goal was credited to Doudelet.

The Lakers quickly killed any momentum that the Thunder had from that goal when Peyton Lupul scored 18 seconds later to make it 9-7 Lakers, but the Thunder were able to cut the Lakers lead to 1 when Doudelet netted his fourth of the game.

Both teams started the third period a bit more reserved, but it started to open up in the second half of the period.

Rahe notched his third goal of the game at 2:08 to tie the game up at 9-9. Both teams tightened up their defence until 11:11 when Randy Jones scored for the Lakers, but then the Thunder came right back with a goal by Dobray just over two minutes later to make it 10-10.

At 14:43, Lakers' Milburn gave the Lakers a lead once again, but again, the lead did not last long as Dobray went five hole on goaltender Yorke at 16:37.

The Thunder had one last opportunity to put the game away when they called a timeout with 13.8 seconds left, but they couldn't generate a scoring chance.

In overtime, both teams had chances and even the Thunder had a few tricks up their sleeves as they pulled their goaltender a few times to try to catch the Lakers off guard, but in the end, both teams couldn't score and the game ended 11-11.

Three stars of the game
1. Burnaby - Tyler Kirkby - 4 goals, 2 assists
2. Langley - Brett Dobray, 4 goals
3. Burnaby - Aidan Milburn, 4 goals, 1 assist

The Thunder will now host the Nanaimo Timbermen on Sunday June 1 and the Lakers will head to Delta to take on the Islanders on Saturday May 31.