The Cowichan Valley Capitals got in the win column for just the second time this season with a dominant 5-1 win over the Salmon Arm Silverbacks at the Island Savings Centre on Saturday evening.
“It felt good. I’m not gonna lie,” Capitals head coach Brian Passmore admitted. “It was nice to have a good feeling around the rink for a change.”
Goalie Adam Marcoux stopped 30 of 31 shots and carried a shutout into the third period, and all four lines were rolling as the Caps put an end to a 12-game losing streak. The Caps went 2-for-6 on the powerplay and killed off all six of Salmon Arm’s extra-man opportunities.
“We played hard,” Passmore said. “We played the full 60 minutes. That’s what it takes in this league. We didn’t have any lapses. We didn’t sit around to wait for something negative to happen.”
Even with their families in town for the annual parents weekend, none of the players tried to hog the spotlight, Passmore noted. They played as a team.
“Each line contributed,” Passmore said. “Everyone played to 100 per cent of their capabilities.”
Ethan Scardina opened the scoring on the powerplay at 5:50, and Azzaro Tinling added what would stand up as the game-winner early in the second. Brendan Cherwalk scored early in the third, and Alexandre Drapeau made it 4-0 with a powerplay goal midway through the period. Salmon Arm got on the board less than a minute later, then Troy MacTavish finished it off with a shorthanded empty-netter.
MacTavish, Tinling and Drapeau all finished with two points, as did Jonathan Stein, who had a pair of helpers. After four successful outings as an affiliate player for the Caps, Stein was signed to the regular roster on Monday. The 1999-born forward had been lighting it up in junior B, putting up 25 points in 14 games with the Delta Ice Hawks, and the Caps figured he was ready to make the move to junior A permanent.
“We decided we needed him here,” Passmore said. “He’s got good vision, he’s offensive and fast.”
Throughout the losing streak, Passmore never lost faith in the players he had on hand, and it paid off on Saturday.
“We knew we had it in us,” he said. “We just had to play that full 60 minutes. We learned hard lessons from games against Alberni, Wenatchee and West Kelowna.”
The Caps put in the same work the next afternoon, but a handful of mistakes prevented them from getting the same result as they lost 4-1 to the Chilliwack Chiefs.
“We got the same effort as the night before,” Passmore said. “It was more or less mental.”
Not including an empty-netter in the dying minutes, the goals the Caps conceded resulted from miscommunication with their goalie, a shorthanded breakaway, and a failure to clear the puck when they had the chance.
The Chiefs scored twice in the first period. Scardina replied with a shorthanded marker at 8:12 of the second, but the Chiefs replied a minute and 14 seconds later, then iced it with an empty-netter at the end of the third.
Yann Dery stopped 22 of 25 shots in the Cowichan net. The Caps killed off five shorthanded scenarios, but failed to capitalize on nine powerplay chances of their own.
“It wasn’t a good day for our powerplay, which has been pretty good at home,” Passmore said. “The guys seemed to relax on the powerplay, thinking it was easy from the night before, maybe.”
The next four games for the Caps are vital if they want to stay on a positive trajectory, Passmore noted, including three against divisional opponents.
“We’ve got to get climbing back in the race,” the coach said.
The Caps will kick off a busy November on Wednesday when they travel to Port Alberni to face the Bulldogs, who swept a home-and-home series in mid-October. They return home on the weekend to host the Trail Smoke Eaters on Saturday at 7 p.m. and the Nanaimo Clippers on Sunday at 2 p.m.
