The Kamloops Storm rained on the Beaver Valley Nitehawks parade on Saturday at the Beaver Valley Arena, dousing the Hawks offence with a 2-1 win.
The Storm’s Ian Chrystal set up Daniel Buchanan for the winning goal just over two minutes into the second period and goaltender Marcus Beesley stopped 30 of 31 shots for the victory.
Kamloops opened the scoring at 12:35 of the first period when Austin Braid beat Hawks starter Zach Perehudoff to take an early 1-0 lead.
The Hawks Archie McKinnon tied it up with just 17 seconds remaining in the period, converting a nice passing play from Riley Brandt and Kurt Black on the power play.
The Hawks threw everything they had at the Storm goalie in the second, firing 16 shots at the net in the second period without a result.
“It wasn’t just the 16 shots, we missed the net a lot too,” said Hawks coach and GM Terry Jones. “We seemed to be off a little bit, but I was pretty happy overall with our effort and our intensity level. There was a lot of good things about the game, but there’s some things we’ve got to improve.”
The Hawks lacked finish around the net partly because they were without forward Dallas Calvin, who was out with an illness, but, even more, the team will also lose its most potent offensive weapon in Ryan Edwards to the Trail Smoke Eaters this week.
“He’s still on our card, but it looks like he is going to sign with the Smoke Eaters,” said Jones. “We’re excited for Ryan, because he deserves to show himself at that (Junior A) level.”
In six games with the Hawks this season, Edwards scored six times and added 7 assists, for 13 points, averaging over two points per game, and went 35-60-95 in 50 games in last season’s championship run.
“We have got to have somebody else to come in and score the points, and do the things that Ryan does,” added Jones.
Perehudoff was solid again in net for B.V. stopping 38 of 40 shots to keep the Hawks in the game. While the Hawks were without d-man Jaymes Veitch, who was out with a hand injury, B.V. was bolstered on the back end by the return of the always-formidable veteran d-man Derek Lashuk who played his first game against Kamloops Saturday. In 24 games with the Hawks last season, the 20-year-old Winfield native went 7-11-18.