The game of hockey can be cruel at times.
Calvin Pickard made several spectacular saves on Saturday night for the Bakersfield Condors, including one 2:55 into overtime when he drove to his left and somehow stopped a point-blank shot by Abbotsford’s John Stevens to keep the game tied 2-2.
But a minute later, after gloving a shot, Pickard tried to keep the play alive by tossing the puck from his glove to James Hamblin.
Instead, the puck fell a bit short and Abbotsford’s Linus Karlsson pounced on it and deposited it into the net for a 3-2 win before 5,499 at Mechanic’s Bank Arena.
“He’s a veteran guy,” said Condors head coach Colin Chaulk of Pickard. “He made a gut decision to try and spring us on a 2-on-1 the other way and it didn’t work out. It’s no different than a forward making a decision sometimes to be offensive. Sometimes those are going to go the other way. I think he was pretty exceptional tonight facing 37 shots.”
The Condors had 10 fewer shots, an area Chaulk said needs improvement.
“I think we want to be more of a shot-first mentality,” he said. “We played hard, were good on the forecheck. I think we did lots of good things but passed up some opportunities to shoot the puck. We want to have that shooting mentality. Our guys know it.”
The Condors got out to a fast start with defenseman Michael Kesselering staking them to a 1-0 lead 6:40 into the game.
Kesselring showed great patience on his goal. He faked a shot at the top of the right circle which got a defender to go down, then skated around to the middle of the circle and rifled a wrister past Artus Silvos.
The Condors made it 2-0 at 16:04 of the period when Dino Kambeitz took a feed from Seth Griffith and scored on a power play.
“I thought our start was really good,” Chaulk said. “I thought we definitely controlled the pace and got out to the early lead. After that we traded punches. It was a hard-fought game.”
The Graham McPhee-Luke Esposito-Kambeitz line was perhaps the best on the night for the Condors as they played an extremely physical game — Esposito had two huge hits in the first 10 minutes — and contributed offensively as well. Kambeitz had an assist to go along with the goal and Esposito also had an assist.
“(They) were great,” Chaulk said. “That was the message to them (to play physically) and it was well received. They were successful tonight.”
Abbotsford cut the lead in half with 1:48 left in the period on a power play goal by Vincent Arseneau.
The Canucks appeared to tie the game at the buzzer but a video review showed the period ended just before the puck went in the net.
Abbotsford tied the game 50 seconds into the second period when the Canucks won a couple of puck battles, leading to a goal by Carson Focht.
“We’re thankful we got one point,” Chaulk said. “Would have liked two but we’re on to the next one, now.”
That next one came quick — at 5 p.m in Ontario on Sunday.
