Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Rampage come close to breaking November goose egg

They put up a hard fought effort (emphasis on the fought) and but for a few bounces may have found a different result.

But when the calendar flipped to December on Monday, the Prince Rupert Rampage had still not recorded a win on their month long trek through the arenas of the CIHL outposts.

Saturday, the Rampage were in Kitimat a pivotal west division match up with the Ice Demons, the points in the standings of some importance for the playoff push to come in December.

The night was one which featured a fair amount of scoring and a fair amount of fighting and other related penalty calls, a physical affair as is often the case when the two West Division rivals get together.

Kitimat opened the scoring at the 14 minute mark of period one, a goal answered by the Rampage three minutes later as Jordan Aubree put the Prince Rupert squad on the scoreboard with assists from Jordan Weir and Derek Baker.

The lead however was a short lived thing, with Kitimat taking that goal back but seven seconds later.

Period number two was all Kitimat, which collected two more goals, heading into the third period with a 4-1 lead.

The third period was for the most part all Prince Rupert, the Rampage picking up their first goal of period three at the twenty three second point, as Jared Davis converted a Marcus Atchison pass for the marker.

Kitimat picked up one more goal (in the end the winning one) at the 1:36 mark, leaving the Rampage in a 5-2 hole with eighteen minutes to go.

Prince Rupert however regrouped, chipping away at that Kitimat lead, the first step a Jordan Weir power play goal at 1:50 of the third, with assists going to Austin Weir and Thomas Robinson.

The Rampage closed the gap to one goal at near the five minute mark, when Jordan Aubree and Kory Movald combined on Aubree's goal, setting the stage for a wild finish heeding through the final fifteen minutes.

However, despite that push, Kitimat held off the Rampage efforts securing the 5-4 final, with time running out on the Rupert side, the Ice Demons secured the 5-4 final, leaving the Rampage without a win through their November tour of the CIHL.

As for the rough stuff, the second period appeared to be the nastiest of the sixty minutes of play, with a string of fighting Majors and a controversial (at least by way of some comments on the Rampage Facebook page) Abuse of official call on Jared Meers.

All of  the second period mayhem culminated in the expulsion of Rampage head coach Roger Atchison at the end of the middle frame.

One the night, the Ice Demons led the parade to the penalty box with 25 minutes on 12 infractions, the Rampage sat in the box for 20 minutes on 10 infractions.

In the nets, Devin Gerrits did his best to keep the Rampage hopes alive in the third facing down the Kitimat offensive units, on the night he faced 35 shots.

While the Rampage fired 34 pucks in the direction of Brandon Highton in the Kitimat net.

The full summary on the night is available here

For Prince Rupert the long road journey is over for now, they return to the Jim Ciccone Civic Centre this Saturday for a match up with the Smithers Steelheads, puck drop for the Winterfest matchup is 8 PM.

The Rampage head into Saturday's match up in need of a win pretty quickly, with a record of 1-8-1 on the year so far, they are trailing the Ice Demons in the race for the final playoff spot in the West Division.

A gap that is still within reach for Prince Rupert, trailing the Ice Demons but by two points with weekend play to come.

You can review more on the Rampage season so far from our Schedule/Results page here, for a larger overview of the year to this point see more of our items on our Rampage Archive page.

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