Despite the Langley Rivermen’s attempts at last-minute heroics, the Vees were able to skate away with a perfect dozen pushing their win streak to 12 Saturday night.
The Interior and Mainland division leaders squared off and the Vees took home the 4-3 win in front of a home crowd of 2,002 at the South Okanagan Events Centre.
Vees captain Tyson Jost, the first star of the game who grabbed a goal and two assists in the win, said the dozen-game win streak is a team effort, but isn’t the focus in the locker room.
“There’s not just one person who contributes to it, it’s a team game and 22 men in that locker room contributed to this streak,” Jost said. “We’re not too focused on that, we’re just focused on going out there every night and working hard, playing our building.”
In a tough and scrappy first period the Rivermen made the most of their shot attempts with Justin Fregona knocking in one of Langley’s two first-period shots in to tie things up at the 15-minute mark.
“They’re a tough team. Obviously they’re big and they’re skilled to so they’ve got a little bit of both sides there. I thought we responded really well, we didn’t get intimidated by that stuff and we didn’t get sucked into any of that with retaliation penalties,” Jost said.
Chris Gerrie knocked in the pass from Mitchell Brooks and Griffin Mendel to give the Vees the lead in the second. Scott Conway put the Vees up two in the dying minutes of the third on a power play goal. It seemed like the Vees had the win cemented, but Fregona and the Rivermen responded back just 40 seconds later giving the Rivermen a 15-second window to tie it up. Despite a few tense last second efforts, the Vees were able take the win at home.
The Vees went two-for-five on the power play while the Rivermen weren’t able to make anything out of the man advantage on four attempts.
Penticton outshot Langley 53-27 and Vees netminder Anthony Brodeur let three of 27 shots in.