Aaron Oakley plays great in 4-3 Victory over Grandview

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Thanks to some great goaltending and a balanced scoring attack, the Sockeyes once again moved ahead of the Delta Ice Hawks for first place in the league. En route to a big 4-3 victory over their division rivals at the Burnaby Winter Club.

Things started off well for the Sockeyes with Mitchell Smith getting his 8th goal of the Season with Kyzen Loo and Scott Wessa getting the assists. But the Steelers reponded with Marko Gordic adding his team and league leading 23rd goal of the season. Simon Horlick added an assist on the play. The sfish just kept swimming though when Drew Spencer ripped a blast past Steelers goalie Norbert Biszczak to take a lead into the 2nd period. Aaron Oakley made 12 stops in the 1st period for the Sockeyes while Biszczak made 11 saves.

Coming out of the dressing room the Steelers tallied very quickly tying the game up just 2:52 into the 2nd period. Curtis Rochetti scored an unassisted goal. It was his 13th on the season. Sockeyes would kill off 2 penalties, and in dying minute of the 2nd period got a huge goal. Jeremy Hamaguchi scored from Brayden Low and Keenan Webb to give the Sockeyes a 3-2 lead heading to the final frame.

After killing off the previous three penalties, the Steelers offence managed to get the tying goal on the power play at the 7:35 mark of the 3rd. Marko Gordic got his 2nd goal of the night from Danny Merth and Kyle Golz. The Sockeyes captain Patrick Hunter answered the call with just 4 minutes left in the game scoring the eventual game winning goal. Sebastien Pare picked up his team leading 34th point off the assist. Time would tick down and Richmond would have its 3rd straight victory and 12th in its past 13 games.

This was only the second time on the entire season the Sockeyes didn't outshoot their opponents. The only time they were outshot was in a 5-1  loss to the North Delta Devils on October 9th 2010. Showing that the Sockeyes use any chance they can to fire that puck towards the net.

Aaron Okaley got his 14th win on the season in net, stopping 28 of 31 shots. While Norbert Biszczak stopped 27 of 31 shots. Three stars of the game were Aaron Oakley(First), Marko Gordic(Second) and Patrick Hunter(Third).

The Sockeyes have been flying high since the start of October collecting points in 23 of 26 games and have only lost once since Halloween. With the win the Fish jumped over the Delta Ice Hawks for 1st place in the Tom Shaw Conference and the league.

Richmond will be looking for a bit of revenge as they face the Ridge Meadow Flames. The last time the two teams faced eachother the Flames walked away with a 3-2 win. Giving the Sockeyes their first loss in 11 games. Game-time will be 7:30 as always. Join Dustin Forbes and Conor Hammond for the call on Sockeyes TV. http://www.richmondsockeyes.com/