A pair of weekend road losses leaves the Coquitlam Express shy of clinching a spot in the BC Hockey League playoffs.
The Express lost 5-4 to the Trail Smoke Eaters on Saturday and 7-3 to the Wenatchee Wild on Friday. They are seven points ahead of the Cowichan Valley Capitals for the league’s last playoff berth, but have played one more game.
In Trail, Tyler Ghirardosi scored the winner just before the halfway mark of the third period after the Express had earlier erased a two-goal deficit with goals by Eric Linell and Jack Lippis 3:30 apart. Joshua Bruce staked the visitors to a 1-0 lead with his seventh goal of the season 7:11 into the first period.
But the Smoke Eaters tied it just over six minutes later when Ross Armour put his 19th goal of the season past Express goalie Brock Hamm. Andre Ghantous then gave the home team the lead three minutes after that.
Sam Kozlowski got the Express back on even terms 8:54 into the second period. But again the Smoke Eaters replied with a pair of goals — by Kale Howarth and Armour with his second of the game — to take a 4-2 lead into the third period.
Hamm stopped 28 of the 33 shots he faced while the Express fired 26 shots at Adam Marcoux in Trail’s net.
Against Wenatchee, the Express were powerless to stop a Wild attack that unleashed 53 shots at Coquitlam keeper Clay Stevenson.
One of those shots, by Wenatchee’s AJ Vanderbeck, eluded Stevenson just 45 seconds into the game.
The Express tied it at 13:02 when Eric Linell converted a set-up from Sam Kozlowski. It was Linell’s 25th goal of the season.
But 27 seconds later, the home team regained the lead when Vanderbeck scored his second of the game, and 30th of the season.
Nathan Iannone and Murphy Stratton extended Wenatchee’s lead to 4-1 with goals in the last five minutes of the second period and Vanderbeck’s hat trick goal 45 seconds into the third period put them up 5-1.
Linell got one of those back for the Express with his second of the game before Wenatchee’s Augst Von Ungern and Sam Hesler sandwiched goals around one by Coquitlam’s Ryan Stack to round out the scoring.
The Express host Salmon Arm at the Poirier Sports and Leisure Complex on Wednesday, at 7 p.m.
