The Prince Rupert Rampage made their second trip to Kitimat in as many weeks to play the Ice Demons on the big ice at Tamitik, and unfortunately for the team the result was the same as the Demons took two points.
On Saturday, still feeling the bruises from the a rough game in Terrace, the Demons had David Venman and Jeff Baker back in the lineup and with the defense shored up and more room to play their game Kitimat had a better opportunity to play their passing game to good effect. The Rampage, still minus the Stavas and goaltender Keith Movald, played a peaceful skating game and Demons looked much more on the ball.
However, with goaltenders Brett Vilness (Demons) and Tremain Kurka doing some pretty sterling work in their respective nets the first period was a bit of a wash until the 13th minute when John Hunt snapped a goal behind Vilness, against the run of play, as Jeff Mildenberger lost an edge and tripped at the Rampage blue line to let Hunt in alone on a long skate. Trevor Cloutheir earned an assist on the turnover.
Four minutes later, Mildenberger made up for the trip when he drifted into the Rampage zone and dropped a pass to Justin Bogaert crossing the blue line and he snapped a shot over goalie Tremain Kurka’s left shoulder to even the scoring at 1-1. In the dressing room, the Demons castigated themselves for the sloppy start and came out fast in the second snapping two quick goals in two minutes to take a 3-1 lead that they never relinquished. The first goal, a beauty, was finished off by Jeremy Brady after some nice tic-tac passing play from Mildenberger to Ian Coleman and on to Brady to finish, with just1.08 gone in the period.
Jonnie Aitken put the finishing touch to a heads up play 1.14 seconds later, with Kyle Madsen and Jeff Baker, celebrating his return after a long recovery, both earning assists on the goal.
The Rampage pulled the lead to one with a goal by Jared Meers, who was in position in the Demons crease to redirect a nice cross pass from Bryan Tates to give the Rampage some life, but the two goal lead was reinstated by Terry Whelan right off the face-off as Josh Slanina put a neat pass on his stick on a two-on-one and he made no mistake. Steve Venman started the play and earned an assist.
That took care of the scoring in the second and the Demons turned a sloppy game into a better passing and opportunity game in the third, with three more goals, the first with just three minutes gone, by Craig Hewitson popping home a forward pass from Justin Bogaert, with an assist to Derek Wakita. Six minutes later the favour was returned as Hewitson dropped a pass from the goal red line back to Wakita coming up the middle and he slammed it behind Kurka. And at 16.22 the pair exchanged passes again with Hewitson getting his second of the night and fourth in two games and Wakita earning his third point of the night.