A convincing win is one thing, but getting goals from eight different players to open the Creston Valley Thunder Cats playoff season is a coaches’ dream.
The Thunder Cats used home-ice advantage to dump the Columbia Valley Rockies 8-1 last night to take a 1-0 lead to open their first playoff round.
Brody Ryan (Colten Witter and Bryce Sturm) opened the scoring 12:14 into the game and Dawson McGuire (Conor Monaghan and Witter) put Creston into a 2-0 lead after one period of play.
Columbia Valley got on the board a minute into the middle frame with a goal from Mike Dyck, but the T-Cats turned on the jets and never looked back.
Ronnie Wilkie (Liam Plunkett and Sturm), Darby Berg, Plunkett (Sturm and Kason Furukawa), Dylan Rantucci (Tyler Witzke and Ryan), Monaghan (Rantucci and Witzke) and Aiden Wong (Berg) all scored before the period ended and that was all she wrote for scoring.
The Thunder Cats outshot the opposition 17-10, 16-9 and 14-0 period and got points from 12 players in the rout. Levi Mitchell stopped all but one of the 19 shots he faced and was solid in goal. Bryce Sturm led all players with 3 points.
Creston was once again without Justen James, their third highest scorer, who has an upper-body injury.
The teams meet again tonight at the John Bucyk Arena in Creston at 7:30. Games 3 and 4 are scheduled for Invermere on Monday and Tuesday.
In the other Eddie Mountain series, league-leading Kimberley Dynamiters dropped the Fernie Ghostriders 6-1 to open their own playoff season.