A furious five goal first period facilitated a fantastic first night of this three game Smokies road trip.
They rode a 5-0 lead after twenty minutes to a 7-2 searing of Spruce Grove.
Former Saint, Evan Sundar started the onslaught scoring before the two minute mark and was given an unsportsmanlike penalty for his celebration while skating past the Saint’s bench.
The native of nearby St. Albert added an assist and had six minutes in penalties during a feisty performance in the rink he called home for over two seasons.
After an Alex Hebblethwaite deflection made it 2-0, Lucas Lemieux finished a perfect three-way passing play with Sundar and Christian Kim during a four-on-four situation. The Edmonton-born defenseman also buried a key shorthanded goal in the second period.
Callas Pierce sniped a top corner breakaway goal less than 40-seconds later, his first of two on the night to go with an assist, as the 18-year-old Prince Rupert product prospered on a line with rookies Deacon Drummond and Cash Carter.
Drummond closed out the first period onslaught, jamming in a rebound at 18:50.
The shellshocked Saints responded scoring 30-seconds into the second period and had a chance to close the gap during five minutes of power play time which began with a 5-minute cross checking penalty to veteran defenseman Jack Kennedy, who was also ejected from the game.
That’s when goalie Teagan Kendrick stole the show. The majority of Saints 22 second period shots came with the man advantage, including close to a minute of that at 5-on-3.
Kendrick stood tall and Lemieux scored the only goal during the Saints advantages, sniping a low shot into the near corner while Trail was two-men short.
At that point, it was pretty much game over.
The prolonged penalty kill was also punctuated by Jack Ziliotto’s block of a searing slapshot, after which, he limped to the bench as he was being pushed by a pair of teammates.
The teams exchanged third period goals, with Pierce popping in Trail’s tally.
Kendrick, who is also from St. Albert turned in a sterling 39 save performance in front of family and friends.
Trail was 0-for-2 on the power play and killed off all five Saints advantages against a team that was 57% with the man-advantage in their first two games.
The 3-0 Smokies head to Sherwood Park for a Saturday night showdown against the Crusaders, who are coming off a 4-1 Friday night win over Salmon Arm.
Sherwood Park has a 2-1 record. Their only loss was a 6-3 setback to Penticton in Sherwood Park last Saturday night.
Game time is 6:00 p.m. PT (7:00 MT) and all of the action can be heard on Mixlr and watched on FloSports.
