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Creston Valley Thunder Cats down 3-1 in KIJHL playoffs

The Creston Valley Thunder Cats are down 3-1 in the first-round best-of-seven playoff series after losing 5-0 to the Kimberley Dynamiters...
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The Creston Valley Thunder Cats play their homes games at the Creston and District COmmunity Complex's John Bucyk Arena.

The Creston Valley Thunder Cats are down 3-1 in the first-round best-of-seven playoff series after losing 5-0 to the Kimberley Dynamiters last night.

On Friday and Saturday, the Thunder Cats lost the first two games of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League playoffs, but bounced back with a triple-overtime win on Monday.

For the team battling the flu, the win ultimately set them up for yesterday’s loss.

“Having such an emotional game on Monday drained our guys,” said head coach Brent Heaven this morning. “Being so shorthand, the guys were playing a lot more than they were used to.”

The Dynamiters scored two power-play goals in Tuesday’s first period, followed by a strong but scoreless second period, in which the Thunder Cats outshot their Eddie Mountain Division opponents 14-9.

“We had some good opportunities, but we weren’t able to get past the goaltender,” said Heaven.

By the third period, “exhaustion was setting in,” and the Dynamiters scored three goals.

The game was a far cry from Monday’s, when the Thunder Cats won game 3 5-4, playing with eight healthy forwards and rotating through less than a half-dozen defencemen.

“It showed resilience for those guys to play almost two full hockey games,” said Heaven.

Trevor Hanna started the scoring with a goal less than a minute into the second period. Two Dynamiters goals followed, and Thunder Cat Tyler Akeroyd tied the score 2-2 with a goal at 0:02. Each team scored twice in the third period, with Darcy Flaherty and Andrew Hodder scoring for the Thunder Cats before the Dynamiters added two.

In the first overtime period (10 minutes), Kimberley scored a goal that was disallowed, having taken place after the Thunder Cats net was knocked off its moorings.

“It was definitely one of those momentum-type things where we still had a shot,” said Heaven.

At 13:18 into the third overtime period — a 20-minute period, like the second — Trevor Forward scored the game-winner, assisted by Hanna and Flaherty.

Thunder Cats goalie Tyler Moffat was named the home game’s first star, after blocking 67 shots and playing for just over 103 minutes.

“He faced a ton of shots,” said Heaven. “He made some great timely saves that really held us in the game. It was probably one of his best games of the year.”

Despite being down two games, Heaven feels the Thunder Cats have a good chance to fight back to win the series.

“By no means in my mind is this series over,” he said. “Our backs are up against the wall, but that seems to be when we play our best hockey.”