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The New Westminster Salmonbellies crept a little closer last night and had the crowd of 2,110 on the edge of their seats until the very end, but it was the Brampton Excelsiors taking game two by a score of 6-5.

Down a familiar 5-2 heading into the third, the Salmonbellies clamped down on Brampton scoring, limiting the Excelsiors to one while slugging out three markers of their own. In the end their three-goal third period comeback was one too few and the Excelsiors now hold a 2-0 lead in the best of seven.

Accounting for both of Brampton’s first period goals, Dan Teat took home player of the game honours as did New West’s Jordan Hall who had two goals and one assist. Blaine Manning added two and one for the Excelsiors while Colin Doyle chalked up one and two, and Ilija Gajic scored twice for the Salmonbellies. Anthony Cosmo blocked many a bounce shot headed for his five-hole, tallying a total of 41 saves on the night for the win. Matt Roik turned away 38 at the other end of the floor.

Just as they did the night previous, the Salmonbellies came out strong with Gajic chopping down a Brampton turnover attempt near the middle of the floor, keeping his team in possession and allowing Cliff Smith to bullet the first goal of the game between Cosmo’s legs two and a half minutes in. The 1-0 advantage would hold for all of five minutes until Brodie Merrill took a stroll up the floor, passing off to Teat who snapped one in to tie things up. For the next ten minutes Roik made a multitude of arm saves while Cosmo covered down low to keep the score 1-1 until Doyle levied a cross crease pass to Teat who tucked in Brampton’s second goal of the game for the 2-1 lead.

The first five minutes of the second period featured two Excelsiors goals, one each from Doyle and Aaron Wilson. Before Brampton could get too far ahead Gajic, who spends the majority of his time on the floor looking like a masochist, pummeled his way to the net, nabbing a Jamie Floris pass to bury New West’s second goal of the game to cut the Brampton lead in half 6:24 into the second. Things looked to be swinging in the Salmonbellies favour as they went on the powerplay shortly thereafter. Unfortunately for them, Dan Dawson got involved in the penalty kill and along with Doyle and Brodie Merrill easily wiped forty seconds of an interference penalty off the board. Barely 15 seconds after the game returned to even strength, Dawson bumped through three Bellies defenders to spot a wide open Manning hugging the crease. With Manning’s easy under-the-arm marker, Brampton took the 5-2 lead. Each team killed off a minor penalty at the end of the period, keeping the remaining seven minutes scoreless.

“Both goalies played great,” said Salmonbellies head coach Bob Salt. “They probably had a few more chances than we did, but we’re never going to lose a game because of our goalies.”

Though Manning struck first in the third to make it 6-2 that would be the most offense Brampton could muster all period, with Roik and the New West D shutting them down for the final 14 minutes. Jordan Hall rebounded quickly from the Manning goal, ending a scramble in front of Cosmo with New West’s third marker. Both teams’ defenses took over for the following nine minutes with every intangible aspect of the game becoming a battle royale.

With less than five minutes remaining, Gajic took an ugly mugging along the boards to snag a looseball, pinballing back to the net for a highlight reel behind-the-back goal, moving the Salmonbellies to within two. That looked to be as close as New West would get, until Peter Morgan brought out the Howitzer to beat Cosmo up top with just 22 seconds remaining. The Bellies won the following face-off, but their time-out did them no good as Cosmo thumped down the final shot and took New West’s game two hopes with it.

Each team gets a day off Sunday, with game three happening Monday night at the Powerade Centre, 7:30 PM EST.

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