Vipers Stifle Smoke Eaters:

This is posted on the Vipers website:

vipers stifle Smoke Eaters

by Don Klepp Added 2010-11-27

The high powered Trail Smoke Eaters could muster just 16 shots on goal as they lost 4-1 to the Vipers in Vernon on Friday.

Trail came into to the game with the second best road power play in the league, but they got only two chances to display that vaunted unit and they were shut down both times.

A new line of David Robinson, Bryce Kakoske, and Marcus Basara led the way for the Vipers, with Robinson scoring twice while Kakoske and Basara assisted on both tallies.

Robinson opened the scoring at 3:15 of the first period on the Vipers’ initial shot on net. Basara got the play rolling with a head man pass to Kakoske on the left wing. As Kakoske approached the Trail blue line, he fed a crisp diagonal pass to Robinson, who had time and space to rip a low shot past Kiefer Smiley’s stick.

Just over a minute later, Clayton McEwan equalized for Trail. On his 19th birthday, the Kelowna native trailed Sam Mellor into the Viper zone and hammered in a long rebound after Blake Voth’s right pad had stopped Mellor’s shot.

From that point on, the Smoke Eaters were stifled by the Viper team defence, and when they did muster some scoring chances, Voth was solid for Vernon.

The Viper regained the lead at 8:03, on a nice deflection by Kyle Murphy, who got his stick on an Elliott Richardson point shot.

Partly because of four Smoke Eater penalties in the second period, the Vipers dominated the middle frame, out shooting the Smokies 14-2. On one of those penalties, David Robinson registered his second of the game, at 13:25.

After he had drawn a hooking penalty by Curtis Tonello at 12:32, Robinson sat out a shift, but scored about 30 seconds into his subsequent shift. He finished off a pretty three-way passing play that was started by Bryce Kakoske and continued by Marcus Basara, who threaded the puck through a defenceman’s legs for Robinson’s tap in at the crease.

Rookies Trevor Fitzgerald and Aaron Hadley completed the scoring at 8:03 of the third period. They converged on the birthday boy, Clayton McEwan, in the Trail zone. First, Fitzgerald dislodged the puck, but it came free for McEwan to take it behind his net. There, Hadley deftly poke checked McEwan and fed Fitzgerald in front for a fierce one-timer.

Game Notes:

• Vernonite Zach McPhee played his first game as a Viper, skating on a line with buddy Colton Sparrow and Darren Nowick.

• Another Vernon product, Max Mowat, missed the game with an injury suffered last weekend.

• The Smoke Eaters were without Scott Jacklin, Rajan Sidhu, Jake Baker, and Joey Baker.

• After losing three in a row, the Vipers have now taken 7 of a possible 8 points in their last four games, dominating play for long stretches in each of those games. In the four games between the two teams so far this season, Trail has won twice at hoem while Vernon has won the two matches in Vernon.