Coco Armstong scores in second straight, Spokane Chiefs down Kamloops 5-2
Coco Armstrong has had a disappointing couple of hockey seasons, dealing with multiple injuries and a position change. If his efforts the past two nights are any indication, the 18-year-old from West Vancouver, BC, may be turning a corner.
Armstrong scored a short-handed goal, his second goal in as many nights, and the Spokane Chiefs beat the Kamloops Blazers 5-2 in a Western Hockey League game at the Arena on Sunday.
Rookie goalie Carter Esler made 28 saves for his fifth WHL win.
“I thought we had good energy,” Chiefs coach Brad Lauer said. “We did a lot of good things.”
The Blazers (14-19-2-1) played their third game in as many nights, with an 8-hour bus ride crammed in.
As with Saturday’s game, the Chiefs (26-13-0-0) got on the board first, thanks to a tremendous individual effort by Armstrong at the top of the penalty kill.
Down a man with less than 6 minutes left in the period, Armstrong came in on a forecheck, intercepted a lackadaisical pass from a Kelowna defenseman between the circles and beat goalie Dylan Ernst top shelf for his second goal of the season.
“The d-man just tried to dangle me on the power play, and I just picked it off and shot right away,” Armstrong said.
“He’s had a tough couple of years being hurt a lot,” Lauer said of Armstrong. “He’s just finding his way. We moved him to center, and I think he’s playing better at center than he did at wing. He’s got some ice to work with. He’s a good skater. He can move the puck. He’s got to get back those games that he’s missed, but he’s getting more comfortable.”
“Missing two months this year is tough, but I’m just keeping the effort up every game,” Armstrong said. “It’s worked out here the last couple of games so I’m just gonna keep it up.”
The Chiefs made it 2-0 early in the second period with a power play goal. Just moments after being stymied by Ernst on a wild goal mouth scramble, Hayden Paupanekis took advantage of a second opportunity, banging home a rebound off a Chase Harrington shot for his 11th goal of the campaign.
A few minutes later, the lead reached three when Smyth Rebman’s wrist shot from the high slot got through a maze of bodies and past Ernst for the forward’s 10th of the season.
With 4:28 left in the period, a check along the boards in the Kelowna end led to an old-fashioned line brawl, with each of the five skaters from both teams matched up with a counterpart.
After several minutes of discussion among the referees, Spokane’s Dane Pyatt and Kelowna’s Isa Guram were assessed fighting majors and a handful of roughing minors were doled out, with the Chiefs left to kill Pyatt’s additional minor penalty for tripping.
Kamloops made it count, with Vit Zahejsky beating Esler with just less than 3 minutes left in the period for his first WHL goal in his 17th career game.
“After we got in those altercations, those scrums, we kind of got a little disconnected,” Lauer said. “We got off our game a little bit. But we found a way to get it back …for the most part we did the right things and were able to capitalize on a few things.”
After withstanding an early buzz by the Blazers in the third, Shea Van Olm made it 4-1 with a nifty wrap-around goal for his league-lead tying 28th of the season.
They added a fifth goal with about 9 minutes left when Owen Schoettler’s shot from the point got through for his fifth of the season, assisted by Van Olm and Sam Oremba.
“We knew they were on a ‘three-in-three’ so we wanted to take advantage of that,” Armstrong said. “We had a day off on them, so we just came in and tried to be harder than them and get under their skin.”
The Chiefs start a three-game road trip against Everett on Friday.