Thunder Get First Win of the Season

The Langley Thunder visited the Delta Islanders on Saturday night hoping to get their first win of the season. 

The first period was a rather quiet one. The Islanders opened the scoring when Spencer Bromley scored at 3:36, but that proved to be the only goal until 16:44. With Thunder's Nicolas Jackson serving a two-minute penalty for too many men, Islanders' Cody Nass finished off a great passing play to give the Islanders a 2-0 lead. 

The Thunder eventually got on the board at 18:15 with Brett Dobray putting the ball in the back of the net and with an Islanders penalty at the end of the period, the Thunder hope to even the score early in the second period. 

Both teams picked up the pace in the second period and it started with the Thunder capitalizing two seconds after the penalty expired at 1:57 with a goal by James Rahe. 

The tie didn't last long as Islanders' Nass made a great pass to Mike Donaldson who then finished it off at 4:34 giving the Islanders a 3-2 lead. 

Thunder's Ryan Gladiuk received a four-minute checking from behind penalty, but with Derick Rouse's tremendous effort in killing the first minute of the penalty, it seemed to have the Islanders bench a tad confused as they got a too many men penalty. 

The pace of the game started to pick up and it stemmed from an Alex Morghese penalty at 13:19. At 14:09, Thunder's Rahe, Tyler Rutherford and Lucas Sundar exchanged passes and Rutherford ended up with the ball last and scored on the power play to tie the game. Just 12 seconds later, Rahe netted his second of the game with a behind the back goal to give the Thunder a 4-3 lead. On that goal, Mike Avery received a four-minute checking from behind penalty, but due to the Rahe goal, he only had to serve two minutes, which did not prove to be costly for the Islanders.

The Islanders tied the game up when goalie Matt Keith made a great heads up play passing it to Evan Messenger who was all by himself at centre and Messenger made no mistake as he put it in the back of the net at 5:40. 

Then all of a sudden, the Thunder opened the game up. Alex Gibbs gave the Thunder the lead at 6:12 followed by back-to-back goals by Dobray at 9:37 and 11:07. Islanders' Greg Finley received a two-minute cross checking penalty after Dobray's second goal and that led to Rahe's third goal of the game at 12:08, giving the Thunder a commanding 8-4 lead. 

The Islanders regained their composure two minutes later when Bromley got his second goal of the game cutting the Thunder's lead to 3. Bromley got his hat trick with 16 seconds left in the game, but the Thunder were able to hang on to their lead as they defeated the Islanders 8-6 and got their first win of the season.

Three stars of the game
1. Langley - James Rahe, 3 goals, 3 assists
2. Langley - Brett Dobray, 3 goals
3. Langley - Steven Mayervich, 40 saves, 6 goals allowed

Both teams will get no rest as the Langley Thunder host the Victoria Shamrocks tomorrow at 5:00PM and the Delta Islanders will head to Bill Copeland Arena to take on the Burnaby Lakers at 7:00PM.