Ben Brar put the Prince George Spruce Kings in the driver’s seat thanks to a 3-2 overtime thriller against the Chilliwack Chiefs from the Rolling Mix Concrete Arena.
The apex of the game was solid effort by Brar, Kyle Johnson and Nolan Welsh who kept the Chiefs in their defensive zone and all the 19-year-old power forward had to do was slide it behind Chilliwack goalie Daniel Chenard.
“It feels good but it all started with a nice exit pass by Johnson as he found me streaking down the wall their, so it was a complete team effort tonight,” says Brar.
“We knew it was going to be a hard working goal in overtime and we stuck with it, won the battle and it kind of came to me in the slot.”
The game-winner was a slice of revenge for the Spruce Kings who had a go-ahead goal off of Brar’s stick called back on a 5-on-3 power play due to incidental contact.
It was key for the hosts to have a short memory.
“There is a lot of emotion in a game like that, obviously when you work so hard and we felt we executed really well on that power-play it is hard to lose something like that by having it taken away but you have to be mature about it and keep moving forward.”
“It’s two good teams out there and neither one is going to give an inch, we’re both resilient and leading into the next game we are going to have to keep it in the front of our minds.”
The Spruce Kings trailed twice as former Spruce King Bryan Allbee opened the scoring for the Chiefs early in the first period.
The game opened up in the second, Liam Watson-Brawn let a wrist shot go from the point past a screen Chenard tying the game at one.
Both teams traded goals once more as Jared Turcotte found the back of the net for Chilliwack while Patrick Cozzi answered for the Spruce Kings.
The best-of-seven is going back for game six on Saturday in Chilliwack.
