Coquitlam Expess 8 Victoria Grizzlies 5 Feb 3,2012 at Bear Mountain Arena

The Victoria Grizzlies welcomed the Coquitlam Express to the Bear Mountain Arena on Friday night and the two clubs engaged in a very entertaining hockey game. The Express jumped out to an early lead but the Grizzlies fought back with goals from Cam Lawson and the red-hot Coltyn Hansen to send the game to the first intermission tied at two apiece. The second period was a tale of two halves with the Express dominating the first 10 minutes and racking up 3 goals from Kunnas, Hodder and Siemer to take a 5-2 lead. The second half of the period was all Grizzlies and more specifically all about the C3 line, Cam, Chase and Coltyn made their mark as a line scoring 3 goals (including 2 by Lawson to complete his hat trick) in the last 4:01 of the period to tie the game at 5 after two periods. The line finished with 14 points for the night as Hansen and Kaiser each had 1 goal and 4 assists and Lawson had 3 goals and 1 assist.
The third period was marred by some questionable officiating as Coquitlam scored an early goal to take a 6-5 lead. The Grizzlies then received a bench minor from referee Poole for arguing a close offside call and Coquitlam took full advantage of the power play to make it a two goal lead. After the goal Poole then compounded things for the Grizzlies by giving Cam Lawson a 10 minute misconduct for continuing to chirp about the offside call. Coquitlam scored again 30 seconds later and after the goal Poole tossed Lawson from the game while Lawson was sitting in the penalty box. The Express and goalie Cole Huggins then shut the door on the deflated Grizzlies to claim an 8-5 victory.

Grizzlies Game Thoughts: The C3 line of Lawson, Kaiser and Hansen was dominant in the Express zone and controlled play with their speed and skill while they were on the ice bringing back memories for Grizz fans of the Myron, Murphy and Moran line. The defense suffered another injury as Jaden Schmeisser left the game with an injury in the first period and didn’t return. The remaining defenders, Kevin Smith, Stefan Gonzales, Nolan De Jong, Braxton Bilous and newly signed Cole Gelley played well in limiting Coquitlam to 35 shots. Bilous played a strong two-way game and was also the only other Grizz to get a point with his assist.

Officials Game Thoughts:
It was a very entertaining back and forth game for 2 plus periods and it would have been nice to see the players settle it on the ice. Referee Carl Poole gave the Grizzlies a bench minor 6:30 into the third period for arguing a close offside call that would have given them an odd-man rush and then gave Cam Lawson who already had a hat trick a misconduct. Now I don’t know what was said and while I don’t believe that referees should have to put up with verbal abuse I also don’t like to see a bench minor and a misconduct to a first line player given in the third period of a one goal game for something that didn’t involve throwing items on the ice or showing up the officials in any visible way. You would never see a bench minor given like that in an NHL game, ideally in that situation the ref would not have “rabbit ears” let the team vent and then skate to the other side of the ice and let the players decide the game. While the Grizzlies playoff chances are finished and won’t be affected by the calls I have to think that Nanaimo, Surrey and Cowichan who are battling the Express for playoff seeds weren’t to happy to see those penalties given.