Aces Strike Again

December 19, 2005 The Victoria Salmon Kings and Alaska Aces faced-off in the rubber match of their three game set, tonight at the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre. The Aces defeated the Salmon Kings, 4-1. Victoria jumped out to the lead at 9:57 of first period, when the top line struck gold. Forward Adam Taylor found Mike Wirll wide open in front of Aces Goaltender Matt Underhill. Wirll, who makes few mistakes in close, beat the goaltender upstairs to give the Salmon Kings a 1-0 lead. The Aces powerplay continued to sizzle when they notched a picture perfect tap-in at 16:19. Defenseman Peter Metcalf found leading scorer Barrett Heisten with a tight cross ice pass and Heisten chipped it into Goaltender Rob McVicar’s wide open net, to tie the game heading into the first intermission. Alaska drew first blood in the second period. The Aces broke out on a three on two which McVicar stopped Heisten in close. The goalie could not trap the puck in his crease through, as he was moving from right to left, and Cam Keith found the rebound which he put past McVicar for the 2-1 lead. The Aces opened the scoring in the third period. Forward Alex Leavitt forced a turnover at the Salmon Kings blueline which gave him a partial breakaway on McVicar. The goaltender made the first save and the puck went into the corner where it was picked up by Mike Scott. Scott fired the pass across the crease to a wide open Chris Minard, who beat McVicar high to give the Aces the 3-1 lead. Minard added his second of the night into the empty net to make the final 4-1. The final shot count was 27-27 in Underhill’s second win in as many nights. Alaska finished 1-4 on the powerplay while the Salmon Kings were 0-5 with the man advantage in front of 4424 at the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre. The Salmon Kings travel tonight to Salt Lake City, Utah where they will play the Grizzlies in their final two games before Christmas on Wednesday and Thursday. Victoria’s next home series is against the Fresno Falcons on January 5-7, 2006.