After seeing their eight-game winning streak come to a crashing halt, the Langley Rivermen quickly righted the ship the very next night.
The Rivermen were coming off a 5-2 loss to the Prince George Spruce Kings on Friday, a game in which they surrendered four first-period goals and never recovered.
But back in action on Saturday, Langley pounded the Salmon Arm Silverbacks, with a season-high 11 goals in an 11-2 rout.
Both junior A hockey games were at the George Preston Recreation Centre and Langley improved to 26-16-5-2. They sit third in the BCHL’s Mainland Division with nine games to play in the regular season.
“I don’t think any of the guys left the rink feeling too good on Friday,” said Rivermen head coach and general manager Bobby Henderson, adding that he fully expected his team to bounce back from their dismal showing.
Against Prince George, Langley led 1-0 but the Spruce Kings scored four times before intermission.
“A couple of missed assignments, we didn’t capitalize on our early opportunities and didn’t get a bounce,” Henderson said.
“They came hard after us, couple of soft goals and we had to play catch-up the rest of the night.”
Brendan Budy and Sean Gulka had the Langley goals.
But as poorly as the team played the one night, less than 24 hours later, it was more of the Rivermen squad of the past two months — they are 15-2-0-2 since Dec. 9 — as they struck for four goals in the first 9:36 of Saturday’s contest.
The Rivermen led 4-1 after one and 8-2 after 40 minutes.
Henderson said the team’s execution was great as they generated chances and capitalized on their opportunities.
Angus Crookshank led the offence with three goals while Cooper Leitch (two goals, one assist), Budy (one goal, two assists), Cameron Ginnetti (one goal, two assists) and Satchel Clendenin (three assists) all had three point games.
Eight of the 18 skaters had goals and only one player failed to register a point, and he was given a game misconduct midway through the first period.
“We have gotten good production up and down our roster, pretty consistently of late.
“That is what we are going to need in the playoffs,” Henderson said.
The Rivermen also got a bounce back performance from goaltender Bo Didur, who was yanked on Friday after surrendering three goals on five shots.
“We knew we were going to get a motivated Bo the next night. As lopsided as the score was, he had to be good at times. They put up a lot of shots,” Henderson said.
“We were consistent defensively, pretty good recognizing our checks and taking away time and space and let our goalie see the puck, which was the main thing.”
The team is back in action on Feb. 7 as they travel to face the West Kelowna Warriors before they visit the Surrey Eagles on Feb. 9.
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