Week in Review February 1

July 2010
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Who will lead the Blazers in scoring this season?

Version 2.08

Week in Review:

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 vs. Spokane Chiefs

Everything went in for the Blazers as the hockey club cruised to an 8-1 victory over the Spokane Chiefs. The Blazers started quick as Brendan Ranford and Ryan Hanes scored on the first two shots of the game to give the hockey club a 2-0 lead. Starting goalie Michael Tadjdeh was pulled after letting in the first two goals. He was put back in goal, but pulled again later on in the game. Ryan Funk added another first period goal to give the home side a 3-0 lead through one period. The Blazers continued to score as Brendan Ranford scored twice to complete the hat trick and CJ Stretch also scored to give the Blazers a 6-0 lead. Spokane cut the lead to 6-1, but Dalibor Bortnak expanded the lead scoring shorthanded to give the hockey club a 7-1 lead after two periods. Matej Bene added a goal in the third period for to give the Blazers an 8-1 victory. Kurtis Mucha earned the win and stopped 26 of 27 shots in the victory. The Blazers were 1-for-5 on the powerplay and 4-for-5 on the penalty kill, as well as scoring shorthanded.

Friday, January 29th, 2010 vs. Vancouver Giants

The Blazers were solid in all aspects of the game and did everything except finish with the win as they fell 2-1 in a shootout to the Giants. A scoreless first period was highlighted with two fights. Jordan DePape and Josh Caron each did well in their fights and sparked the hockey club, but the Blazers failed to score. The hockey club finally got a puck past Mark Segal as CJ Stretch squeezed it through the five hole to give the Blazers a 1-0 lead going into the third period. Dalibor Bortnak had a glorious chance to score to start the third period but missed a wide open net to keep the score at 1-0. The Giants were awarded a powerplay in the last five minutes of the game and tied it up as Tomas Vincour snapped a shot off the post and in. The game headed to a shootout as Craig Cunningham was the only player to score to give the Giants the victory. Kurtis Mucha was terrific in goal stopping 31 of 32 shots in the loss. The hockey club was 0-for-4 on the powerplay and 2-for-3 on the penalty kill.

Saturday, January 30th, 2010 @ Everett Silvertips

After a tight loss to Vancouver at home Friday, the Blazers suffered another one goal defeat as the Silvertips extended their winning streak to 14 games and downed the Blazers 2-1. The hockey club had a slow start as Everett beat goaltender Jon Groenheyde twice in the first period to lead 2-0. The Blazers played better in the second period as Brendan Ranford scored off a great set up by CJ Stretch and Jake Trask to cut the Silvertips lead to 2-1. Chances continued to be traded by both hockey teams throughout the second period, but the scored remained 2-1 through two periods. The Blazers played well in the third period, but failed to score as Everett went on to a 2-1 victory which set a franchise record of 14 straight wins. Meanwhile, the Blazers suffered another narrow defeat, after last night’s shootout loss. Jon Groenheyde got into his first game since being pulled in Tri-City two weeks ago and played well stopping 33 of 35 shots faced. Both teams combined for only 8 minutes in penalties as the Blazers were 0-for-2 on the powerplay and 2-for-2 on the penalty kill.

January Performers

5th year forward CJ Stretch led the charges up front in January. Stretch had 7 goals and 12 assists for 19 points this month. The best stat of Stretch’s month was that in 14 games, he was an astonishing +13.
Brendan Ranford had the best month of his WHL career with 10 goals and 23 points in 14 games. He also was +12 this month, and recorded his first WHL hat-trick.
Goaltender Kurtis Mucha had a stellar month as the 20 year old goaltender went 6-3-0-1 with a 3.01 goals against average and a .911 save percentage this month.

Recchi Carries Torch

Mark Recchi was the final torch bearer of the Olympic flame in Kamloops on Wednesday, January 27th. The former Kamloops Blazer star and current co-owner of the hockey team carried the torch in front of an estimated 12,000 people at Hillside Stadium in Kamloops. Recchi, who turns 42 on February 1st, has played in 1543 NHL games in 21 seasons in the NHL. He has accumulated 555 goals and 1470 points for 13th all-time on the NHL points list.

The Blazer players were also a part of the ceremonies. They helped to create a human wall which lined Recchi’s path to the stage.

Milestones

CJ Stretch has now played in 323 WHL games, all with the Kamloops Blazers. Stretch is only the 5th player to play 300 games in a Blazer uniform. Erik Christensen (304), Greg Hawgood (310), Donnie Kinney (319), and Aaron Gionet (324) are the others. He will tie the franchise record on Wednesday, February 3rd in Portland, and should break the record on Friday, February 5th in Spokane. Stretch has now recorded 227 WHL points and recently passed Scottie Upshall for 24th on the Blazers all-time scoring list.

Blazer goaltender Kurtis Mucha is having a record breaking season. Mucha now is first all-time in minutes played amongst goaltenders with 13,020 minutes played. He surpassed the WHL record two weeks ago and now holds the CHL record, passing Ryan Mior’s 12,933 minutes played with PEI and Gatineau of the QMJHL. Mucha has now played 232 WHL games and needs to play 2 more games to pass Kyle Moir’s record for most games played by a goaltender with 233. Mucha is also third all-time in saves for a goaltender with 6,559 saves. He is 399 saves shy of Danny Lorenz’s record of 6,958 saves.

Team Leaders:

Goals – Brendan Ranford (22)

Assists – CJ Stretch (39)

Points – CJ Stretch (60)

+/- – Josh Caron, CJ Stretch (+3)

Rookies – Dylan Willick (23)

PIM – Josh Caron (137)

GAA – Kurtis Mucha (3.07)

SV % – Kurtis Mucha (.906)

Community Service

Monday, February 1st