Vees win playoff opener 2-1

Photo: HockeyTV

Jack Barnes scored midway through the second to give the Vees a 2-1 lead against the Express in game one of their first round playoff series.

The Penticton Vees more than doubled the Coquitlam Express in shots and squeaked out a 2-1 win on Friday night, taking game one of their first round series.

The Vees got on the scoreboard early thanks to Jonny Tychonick's first career BCHL playoff goal at 4:50 of the first. 

Penticton carried that lead into the second period, but 54 seconds into the middle frame Christian Sanda scored to tie things at one. 

Sanda's goal was the first playoff goal for the Express since their last playoff game on Mar. 8, 2016.

The Vees regained their lead just over six minutes later, when rookie Jack Barnes buried the first playoff goal of his career. Shots were 25-10 for Penticton after 40 minutes.

In the last minutes of the game, the Vees battled some adversity. James Miller was ejected for a major penalty for checking from behind.

The Express were given a penalty for roughing on the same stoppage, and after two minutes of four-on-four Penticton successfully killed off the last three minutes of Miller's major penalty.

Coquitlam pushed hard in the game's final minute or so, and did so all the way to the dying seconds. After only five shots in each of the first two periods, the Express piled more shots than that in the game's final 75 seconds.

But the regular-season-champion Vees held on to take game one, and led 39-19 shots at the end of the night.

The two teams will do battle again tomorrow night for game two, which goes at 6 p.m. at the South Okanagan Events Centre.

In other playoff action Friday involving Interior division teams, the Vernon Vipers earned a 5-2 win against the Salmon Arm Silverbacks and the Trail Smoke Eaters downed the West Kelowna Warriors 6-5 in overtime.