The Salmon Arm Silverbacks began their first round playoff series against the Trail Smoke Eaters with two losses on the road.
The ‘Backs lost 4-2 on Friday night at Cominco Arena in Trail.
Salmon Arm’s Nathan Iannone scored the game’s first goal five minutes in, on the power play, it was the only goal of the first period.
Trail tied it up and then took the lead in the second period with goals from Luke Santerno and Connor Brown-Maloski.
A scuffle in the final seconds of the second frame lead to roughing penalties dealt to Silverbacks Trevor Ayre and Jared Turcotte and Smoke Eaters Carter Cochrane and Andre Ghantous.
Kale Howarth stretched Trail’s lead to two goals early in the third frame.
After the ‘Backs pulled goaltender Nic Tallarico out of the net with three minutes to go, former Silverback Josh Laframboise scored on the empty net leaving the score 4-1 Smoke Eaters.
With just seven seconds to go, ‘Backs captain Carson Bolduc scored assisted by Elijiah Barriga, but it was too little too late to pull off the win.
The following night the teams met again.
Following a high-sticking penalty on Silverbacks defenceman Max Wutzke, Laframboise scored on the powerplay assisted by Carter Cochrane.
Barriga evened it up with a power play goal for the ‘Backs less than two minutes later.
Before the end of the first frame Brown-Maloski solved Salmon Arm goalie Trevin Kozlowski assisted by Jeremy Lucchini.
Laframboise struck again early in the second, extending his team’s lead to two goals.
Korbyn Chabot and Cochrane each added a marker to Trail’s total before the halfway point of the second period.
After the fifth goal against him, Kozlowski was replaced with Tallarico.
Fourteen minutes into the second period, Trail scored their sixth goal of the game, this one from Ross Armour.
Turcotte tried to lead a Salmon Arm comeback with a power play goal assisted by Iannone, but it would be the ‘Backs last of the game.
Trail’s Mitchell Barker scored the only goal of the third period at 6:46, wrapping up a 7-2 win for the Smoke Eaters.
The Silverbacks will have an opportunity to swing the series back in their favour with a pair of games on home ice on March 7 and 8.