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Win over the Wild important to Vees

Nicholas Jones made a crazy dangle to beat Wenatchee Wild goalie Anthony Yamnitsky on a breakaway.
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Nicholas Jones made a crazy dangle move to beat Wenatchee Wild goalie Anthony Yamnitsky on a breakaway Saturday.

His 21st tally secured a 2-0 victory for the Vees at the South Okanagan Events Centre and made the crowd of 4,142 (with a few Wild fans) go bananas. Earning an assist was linemate Chris Klack. However, someone else wants a share of it. http://blackpress.tv/video.php?id=20543

“I’m going to take a little credit for his goal tonight,” said Vees goalie Mat Robson, who earned the shutout turning aside 33 shots.

Every morning skate, Robson gives Jones three breakaways in a competition. It’s been a long season when it comes to their one-on-one battle and he figures that it is pretty even, yet Robson still picked a winner.

“I’m going to have to say myself,” laughed Robson, a future Minnesota Golden Gopher.

Jones said it has been a back-and-forth battle.

“At the start of the year he had me more. Lately I’ve been doing pretty good,” said Jones, a University of North Dakota Fighting Hawk commit. “I’d say overall he’s beat me. He’s a pretty good goalie. I’ve been making a few moves, change it up. He knows all my moves now. It’s hard to change it up with him.”

Both Vees talked about the significance of the win.

“It’s huge for the confidence. I don’t think we ever felt (doubting themselves) like that,” said Robson, who has 31 wins and four shutouts. “A lot of things get portrayed negatively when things don’t go well for the team, especially a team like this. Just used to winning all the time. Two games in a row when you don’t get a point, that’s like the end of the world almost. We know in the room the sun is going to keep coming up. We know what we have in there. Every day we come to work. We know what we’re capable of. A win like this just proves it.”

Jones echoed some of Robson’s comments about the win and added the last two weeks have been really good.

Helping fuel the Vees was the crowd, said Jones.

“Especially going back to the first period when we had all those penalty kills, the crowd was really into it from the beginning of the game,” said Jones, who has equalled last season’s goal total and is eight from tying the point total of 63. “It’s fun to play in front of them, it gives the guys a little bit more juice on the ice.”