Vipers One Win From League Title:

This is in todays Morning Star Newspaper:

Vipers one win from league title

Netminder Carsen Chubak could bail out the Powell River Kings only so many times before the Vernon Vipers found a way to solve him.
The Prince Albert, Sask. product posted a stellar 67-save performance, but it was rookie Sahir Gill who scored the biggest goal of his young career 5:31 into the third overtime period as the Snakes outlasted the Kings 3-2 before 2,564 fans in Game 4 of the B.C. Hockey League’s Fred Page Cup Championship.
The Vipers lead the best-of-seven series 3-1, with Game 5 going tonight at the Powell River Recreation Complex. If necessary, the series will return to Vernon for Game 6 Sunday night. Game 7 would go Tuesday on the Sunshine Coast.
One shift after Chubak made the save of the night – coming cross-crease to deny Chris Crowell on an open-net one-timer – Gill took a desperation diving poke at a loose rebound, chipping the puck under the Powell River keeper’s right arm. Twins Connor and Kellen Jones earned assists.
“It’s No. 1,” said Gill, of where that goal sits on his list of favourites. “You can’t beat that right now.
“We haven’t had too much success in overtime in the playoffs, and we didn’t want it to go that way, but that’s the way it went. It was a tight-checking game, and it’s not going to be a pretty one that’s going to go in for the winner.
“We had a lot of quality chances, especially in overtime, and we felt we were maybe the better conditioned team.”
Vipers’ forward Mike Collins opened the scoring at 5:22 of the first period on the powerplay. He danced around a Kings’ defender at the point before walking into the slot, beating Chubak high glove side with a wrister.
“It’s pretty disappointing. We had a good effort and they had a great effort too,” said Chubak, who turns 20 on Saturday. “They’ve got a lot of heart in there, and they might have deserved it a little more than us tonight.
“A goalie doesn’t want to let a goal in in overtime. Somebody’s gotta lose... and I’m sure they feel pretty good over there, so congrats to them.
“We’ll have a long day to think about this and get it out of our system. We’re hockey players, we’ve lost before, so we’ll just regroup and it’ll be a heck of a game on Friday.”
Erik Vos pulled the Kings even midway through the first frame on a scramble in front of netminder Andrew Hammond, who recorded 41 stops.
“We worked so hard through the whole game, and you know it’s just going to be a crapshoot and a lucky bounce somewhere, and that’s the way it ended,” said a fatigued Vos, a Hamilton product.
“We still really haven’t shown this team what we’re really made of, and I think Game 5 at home is no better place to do it. If we play our game for 60 minutes, we should be coming back to Vernon.”
Early in the second, Jordan Grant turned Vipers’ d-man Cody Ikkala inside out before going backhand on Hammond to give Powell River a one-goal lead heading into the final regulation period.
The Snakes dictated the pace in the early going, but appeared content to fall into the Kings’ style of play in the middle frame. Vipers’ head coach Mark Ferner was pleased with how the team responded down the stretch.
“At times we get a little bit complacent. We want to go out and initiate everything. We weren’t moving our feet all the time, we weren’t taking time and space away. We’re a puck pursuit hockey team, making teams move the puck when they don’t necessarily want to.”
Sensing the urgency, the Vipers came alive in the third period and started throwing the body and moving their feet more.
After rushing up the wing, the Snakes’ Braden Pimm supplied a near carbon-copy goal of Collins’ at 3:13 of the third period to force overtime.
The Vipers’ OT intermission meal of chocolate bars and energy drink (the Kings settled for muffins and Gatorade) seemed to pay off because as the game wore on, the Vipers started taking it to Powell River. They outshot the Kings 33-13.
“It would have been pretty disappointing to go back (to Powell River) 2-2 with them having home-ice advantage,” said Ferner. “They seemed like they weren’t going to be denied. Even when it was 2-1, Braden Pimm had a great effort to tie it up, and we just got stronger as the game went on.”
Added Kings’ head coach Kent Lewis: “That’s hard, someone’s going to lose a real difficult one and that was us. We’ve put ourselves in this situation, and now we’re down a couple games.
“Now it’s time to have our backs against the wall and play our best hockey game of the year. They have to be ready to play a great game because we desperately want to come back here.
“This club has strung nine (wins) together a couple times this year, and there’s no reason we can’t again.”
The Vipers are one win away from a date with the Grande Prairie Storm in the Doyle Cup Championship. The Storm, who are coached by former Viper bench boss Mike Vandekamp, swept the No. 1 ranked Spruce Grove Saints 4-0 in the Alberta Junior Hockey League final.