KEVIN ROTHBAUER
Cowichan Valley Citizen
The Cowichan Valley Capitals earned their second straight win, and fourth victory of the B.C. Hockey League season, when they beat the Victoria Grizzlies 5-3 at the Island Savings Centre on Wednesday night.
Troy MacTavish, Azzaro Tinling, Hugh Larkin and Ethan Scardina scored to stake the Caps to a 4-0 lead before the Grizzlies got on the board with less than a second left in the second period. Brendan Cherwalk restored the four-goal edge early in the third.
The Grizzlies scored midway through the third, and again in the final minute of the game, but couldn’t get any closer.
Centre Ty Pochipinski and defenceman Simon Chen each had a pair of assists.
The Caps were outshot 46-29 on the night, but J.J. Pichette made 43 stops as he improved to 2-2 in his short time with Cowichan so far.
The Caps made a trade on Tuesday, shipping the rights to goalie Adam Marcoux to the Trail Smoke Eaters for future considerations. Marcoux had left the team last week and requested a trade.
The Caps will look to make it three in a row on Saturday when they host Ben Berard and the Powell River Kings in another divisional matchup.
In other BCHL action, the Victoria Grizzlies have a new netminder in the lineup.
The team announced Wednesday that they acquired veteran goaltender Kurtis Chapman from the Calgary Mustangs for a player development fee.
Head coach Craig Didmon decided to pickup Chapman after learning both of his goaltenders would be off the roster for December due to other commitments.
Starting goalie Zach Rose is representing western Canada in the World Junior A Challenge and won’t be back in the lineup until January. Shawn Parkinson has been placed on the injured reserve list.
“It is a tough situation as both goalies have played well in their rookie seasons, and continued to improve. Shawn has been fighting injuries over the last month and needs to rest and heal. We are very happy for Zach, however there are six games remaining before the break, so we felt we needed to bring in some stability,” Didmon said in a statement.
“I like that he [Chapman] has experience with success. He has won at Midget and at the Junior A level.” Chapman is expected to hit the ice for the Grizzlies this weekend.