Glacier Kings Roll Peninsula 7-1 As Ander Reyes Stands on His Head

A week after an opening night that left plenty of questions unanswered, the Glacier Kings delivered emphatically on the road, beating the Peninsula Panthers 7-1 on Friday at Panorama Recreation Centre. The final score doesn’t tell the whole story, though. Peninsula outshot Comox Valley 41-25, but it didn’t matter, because Ander Reyes turned in one of the best goaltending performances you’ll see, stopping 40 of 41 shots and pushing Peninsula to the final minute of the game before the Panthers finally solved him.

Tegan Clayton opened the scoring at 10:29 of the first period. Tee Hagel beat an icing call to the puck at the end boards and, without missing a beat, threaded a no-look, behind-the-back pass to Clayton driving in from the top of the slot. Clayton took it in stride right at the top of the crease and beat Pyle far side, blocker side, on a bang-bang play, with Elias Haukeness picking up the second assist. 1-0, Glacier Kings.

The Glacier Kings pulled away in the second, and it started with the eventual game winner. Trevor Swanson got in tight on Colton Pyle, who made the save, but the rebound squirted into the far corner, where Haukeness, back in the lineup this week after main camp, dug it free. He fed Collin Lee working the wall behind the net, and Lee found Haukeness right back at the bottom of the circle, where he beat Pyle short side, low glove, at 11:07. Lee made it 3-0 on the power play at 12:40, cashing in a Cruze Kopeck and Tee Hagel setup. Clayton struck again at 17:20, right as Comox Valley’s power play was expiring. Dexter Jung worked the puck along the far half-boards and threaded a pass through the seam to Clayton, driving in from the point. Luke Christensen, still scrambling out of the penalty box, couldn’t get back in time, and Clayton took the feed just inside the top of the circle and beat Pyle clean, far side, over the glove, to make it 4-0. Kopeck added another power play goal with 58 seconds left in the period, assisted by Leon Mikhalchuk, to send the Glacier Kings to the third up 5-0.

Colton Pyle, who took the loss in the Peninsula net, didn’t make it out of the third. Lee opened the period’s scoring at 3:10 for his second of the game, and Peninsula turned to Eliott Horner in relief. The change didn’t slow things down much. Dexter Jung made it 7-0 at 7:47 off a Westin Churchill assist before Peninsula finally got on the board with 34 seconds left. Markus Nichols collected a loose puck on the near-side faceoff dot and, from a sharp angle down near the goal line, beat Reyes short side to spoil the shutout bid.

Reyes was named the game’s first star, and it wasn’t close. Nothing about it was flashy, there wasn’t one signature highlight-reel save, it was sustained volume. Peninsula peppered him with 41 shots over the course of the night and kept the pressure coming in waves, but Reyes was simply square and reliable all evening, and Comox Valley never let a bad sequence turn into a soft goal. Clayton picked up the second star with his two goal night, and Lee earned the third with two goals and an assist of his own.

The result is also a strong early return on the lineup changes from earlier in the week. Haukeness, Churchill, Jung, and Kopeck were all back in the fold after spending the previous week at Junior A main camps, and all four factored into the scoring tonight, with Haukeness netting the game winner in his first game back. Comox Valley finished 2 for 5 on the power play and killed off all five Peninsula chances.

The win also extends a trend worth watching: the Glacier Kings have now beaten Peninsula three straight times in North Saanich, dating back to last season, this building has been kind to the Glacier Kings.

Comox Valley evens its record at 1-1-0-0 and is right back at it fast, hosting the Lake Cowichan Kraken tomorrow night, Saturday, September 12th, at 6:30 PM at Comox Valley Sports Centre.