The Trail Smoke Eaters and Wenatchee Wild needed nine rounds of a shootout to decide Saturday’s winner of Game 2 of their two-game series in Wenatchee on the weekend.
The shootout was tied at one, after the preliminary three shooters. Trail had a chance to win it after Mike Colella scored in the sudden death, but the Wild replied. Wenatchee goalie Daniel Chenard and Trail netminder Logan Terness went save for save through eight attempts, until Wenatchee’s Hunter Hastings squeezed a wrister past Terness for a Wild 2-1 victory.
The win secured Wenatchee a playoff berth lifting their record to 23-20-3-1, and currently sit in fifth place one point back of Vernon and two behind Salmon Arm.
Trail skated to a 4-3 win on Friday night, and looked for the sweep in Saturday’s match, but couldn’t beat Chenard despite some prime chances in the late going and extra frame.
Wild forward Luke Ormsby tipped a shot past Terness at the 14-minute mark of the first to put Wenatchee up 1-0.
The Smoke Eaters replied 27 second later when Owen Ozar jumped on a turnover below the left circle, drove to the net and outwaited Chenard.
The teams skated through the final two periods and the five-minute overtime trading chances but were unable to find the game winner thanks to 36 saves from Terness and 26 from Chenard.
Trail went 0-for-3 on the power play, and 4-for-4 on the penalty kill.
On Friday night, Trail forward Colella scored the game winner on a perfect setup in front from Kent Johnson with 9:15 to play for a 4-3 victory.
The Smoke Eaters came back all night long before the New Jersey native notched his 21st of the season to give Trail the lead.
The Smokies went into the tough Toyota Town Centre looking to continue their torrid pace having won 9-of-10 games.
After a Trail goal was disallowed, Wenatchee’s Brian Adams scored on a power play as he punched home the rebound of a Dylan Herzog point shot ending a streak of 18 consecutive successful Trail penalty kills in the season series. The Wild went up 2-0 just 34 seconds later on a Harrison Scott marker at 13:25.
Trail cut the lead in half when Johnson’s centering pass banked off a player and into the net for his league leading 34th tally.
Smoke Eaters forward Matt Osadick tied it up on the power play at 2:03, but Ormsby gave the Wild a 3-2 lead midway through the middle frame. With time winding down, Philippe Lapointe sniped a shot past Chenard to tie it at three with just three seconds left.
Wenatchee outshot Trail 27-17 with Matteo Paler-Chow picking up the win in the Smoke Eaters net. Wenatchee went 1-for-7 on the power play, while Trail scored once on three chance.
Trail boosts their record to 30-14-2-2-1, and will host the Prince George Spruce Kings on Wednesday at the Trail Memorial Centre with the puck drop at 7 p.m.