Thank God for ZZ Top.
The Victoria Royals have a day off today thanks to an opportunistic concert date from the Little Band From Texas. The concert gives them the ultra-rare Friday off, which they earned in spades.
Thursday’s win was a tank-emptying display of playoff hockey. Just enough offence, incredible penalty killing and a sparkling goaltending performance from Coleman Vollrath.
It wasn’t pretty, but in playoff terms it was beautiful.
They opened the scoring on a great pinch from Marsel Ibragimov, which led to a sharp give-and-go between Tyler Soy and Jack Walker. Walker’s league-leading 6th of the playoffs didn’t stand up for long though. Tyson Baillie responded just over a minute later with his 1st goal of the postseason after a gaffe from Vollrath. The Royals starter failed to snare an easy wrister from the half wall and Baillie pounced, scoring on the wraparound. That, however, was Vollrath’s last mistake. 18 seconds after that goal, Jared Dmytriw took a double minor for high sticking and Vollrath turned aside everything that came his way.
The Royals tireless forecheck accounted for the winning goal early in the 2nd period. Dante Hannoun started the play with a stiff body check then finished it with some deft hands, chipping a Matthew Phillips pass over Rockets goalie Michael Herringer for the 2-1 lead.
While that stood as the winner, the most telling evidence of the Royals all-in attitude came after acting Captain Logan Fisher was assessed a 5 minute major and game misconduct for boarding midway through the period. Vollrath absorbed every shot that came his way (most from the periphery) as the Royals successfully killed it off as the crowd at Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre roared its approval.
No Joe Hicketts, no Vladimir Bobylev, and without Logan Fisher for the final 30 minutes, the Royals fired a warning shot in Game 1. They can win games the hard way.
And despite the day off, don’t think the Royals will be concert goers. As Vollrath told a live TV audience after the game “With Dave Lowry behind the bench there’s absolutely no way we’re going to ZZ Top tomorrow”.
Rest up, Royals. You’ll need it.
