Ash Goldie does it again
Victoria 5 ? Phoenix 4 (OT)
Cleve Dheensaw, Times Colonist
Published: Saturday, December 01, 2007

The Victoria Salmon Kings picked a most opportune night -- in front of the largest crowd of the season at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre -- to stage a furious late-game rally and steal a dramatic 5-4 ECHL overtime victory against the Phoenix RoadRunners.

The Salmon Kings extended their home-ice winning streak to 10 games before 5,810 raucous fans. And who would have pegged the members of Tool, who play at Save-on-Foods tonight, to be hockey fans? The Los Angeles rockers attended the game and then showed their appreciation by going into the Salmon Kings dressing room after the game to meet the players.

And a happy room it was. Trailing by two goals for much of the game, the Salmon Kings got a goal from Jordan Krestanovich to make it 4-3 with four minutes remaining in regulation time before Ash Goldie tied it 4-4 one minute and 22 seconds later.

It was Goldie's screeching powerplay shot at one minute of overtime -- complete with the goalie's water bottle popping classically off the net and high into the air -- that won it for the Vancouver Canucks' farm club.

The Salmon Kings improved to 14-5 while Phoenix, farm team of the San Jose Sharks, went to 6-9-3. It was the third consecutive loss for the RoadRunners against Victoria that went into overtime or a shootout.

"This was a big character win," said Victoria captain Kiel McLeod.

"Up to the end, however, I thought our third period was atrocious, embarrassing and flat. But we showed some resiliency."

It didn't take long for the Salmon Kings to hit the scoreboard. Chris St. Jacques rifled home a nifty back-handed breakaway shot just 1:47 into the game for Victoria's first goal. That was the cue for many hundreds of stuffed toy animals to come flying out of the stands and litter the ice. They will be given to the Queen Alexandra Children's Hospital, the pediatric ward of Victoria General Hospital and C-FAX's Santas Anonymous.

While Victoria scored early, Phoenix was faster off the mark after a breakaway goal by Peder Skinner that cleanly beat Julien Ellis 1:18. That was the start of a hairy six-goal opening period in which Phoenix led 3-1 before the game was five minutes old. When the ice chips had settled, the RoadRunners went into the first break leading 4-2.

Ellis looked to be battling the puck in allowing three first-period goals before heading to the dressing room after taking a shot off the hand. The way the night was going, maybe he just wanted to get the heck out of there. The Canucks prospect looked to be in a great deal of pain as he skated off the ice. His condition was not known at press time.

Ellis was replaced by Billy Thompson. The key moment in the period came at the 13-minute mark. Victoria forward Kevin Estrada had made it 3-2 at 10:44 of the first and the crowd sensed a Salmon Kings counter attack.

But an inexcusable inability to clear out the third Phoenix forward who got a chance to bang away at the puck accounted for Justin Maiser's powerplay goal that made it 4-2 at 13:00 and completely changed the tone of the game.

Phoenix gave up any pretense of attack in the third period and settled into the task of defending their net. The strategy looked to be working -- at least until it backfired in the most spectacular of fashions.

The memory of that will have to sustain the Salmon Kings through a five-game road trip.

The club doesn't return to Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre until Dec. 19 against the Alaska Aces.