Ice Hawks Impressive Win

The weekly Tuesday night hockey as shown on Delta TV saw a match-up between the Delta Ice Hawks as they hosted the “tunnel rivals” the Richmond Sockeyes.

The Ice Hawks have a game in hand against the Grandview Steelers and this contest saw them come out on top managing a 4-1 win.

It moves Delta to within two (2) points of top spot with a 4-1 win over the Richmond Sockeyes, but this win saw them get revenge for last Thursday “7-1 thumping” in Richmond.

Entering the game saw the Sockeyes manage three straight wins pulling within 3 points of the second place Ice Hawks in the Tom Shaw Conference.

This game was virtually a four point match-up for Delta as a loss to Richmond would have given the Sockeye’s a chance to move to within two points of Delta in the standings.

Delta however came out with a strong performance in what eventually proved to be a very entertaining game.

The opening 20 minutes featured an exceptional goalkeeping battle between Delta’s Jordan Naylor and Richmond’s Joshua Barrett of the Sockeye’s as both teams went to the intermission deadlocked at zero.

The second saw Delta’s Jordan Deyrmenjian open the scoring at 8:26 beating Barrett giving the Hawks a 1-0.

Delta managed to take a two goal lead on goals by Mark Epshtein at the 15:38 mark of the period giving the Ice Hawks a 2-0 lead.

As if one wasn’t enough 29 seconds later (16:07) Delta’s Tetsuya Prior put the Ice Hawks up by a 3-0 setting the tone for an eventual win for the Ice Hawks.

Richmond managed a last minute goal at 19:15 with McLeod popping one past Naylor to pull the Sockeye’s within two making it a 3-1 game after two.

Richmond dominated in the shot department through both the first (12 shots) and second (14 shots) periods outshooting Delta by a 26-18 margin.

The third period again saw outstanding play at both ends of the ice as both Barrett (Sockeyes) and Ice Hawks Jordan Naylor perform exceptional with both making key saves keeping the game within reach.

Richmond pulled Barrett for an extra attacker allowing Delta’s Quinten Wideski got an empty netter and his first of the season with only 1:21 remaining giving Delta a 4-1 win.

Delta “tender” Jordan Naylor came up with a strong performance allowing only McLeod’s single goal finishing with a 35 save performance on 36 shots; while Barrett stopped 24 of 27.

Special teams saw Delta go 0-1 on the night, while Richmond’s Barrett went 0-3, so moving forward, it’s clear to see that special team’s need a “tad” more work for both clubs.

Delta’s record now improves to 27-12-0-1 on the year good for 55 points two back of the first place Grandview, while Richmond goes to 21-12-3-5 good for 50 points holding down third in the Tom Shaw Conference.

As the season comes to an end Delta has one home game remaining with them facing the Panthers of Port Moody.

The race for first starts to heat up as Delta and Grandview each closes the regular season each having 4 games remaining.

This includes a key match-up as Delta travels to the Burnaby Winter club for a Sunday afternoon tilt at 4 pm.

The previous night (Saturday) see’s Delta visit Mission City, while the Steelers are facing the North Vancouver Wolf pack also on Saturday at the Harry Jerome Rec Centre at 7 pm.

A win by each team on Saturday sets up a four pointer Sunday in Grandview (BWC) in what could prove to be a photo finish in the Tom Shaw Conference year-end games.