Zach Shaughnessy stopped 25 of 27 White Rock shots on Tuesday night, keeping his team ahead in a tight game, leading to their eventual 4-2 win over a Tom Shaw Conference division rival.
The Delta Ice Hawks have now won four in a row, thanks to some strong goaltending from Zach Shaughnessy in a 4-2 win over the White Rock Whalers Tuesday night.
Shaughnessy, fresh off his debut with the Coquitlam Express of the BCHL this past weekend, stopped 25 of 27, with one of the goals coming off a fluke bounce in front.
In the first, the Hawks turned a Whalers chance into a goal – White Rock fired a shot over the net and it bounced around the boards right to Conner Merriman. After a couple strides, Merriman passed up to Henry Smith, who broke through two defensemen and scored backhanded over the shoulder of Mark Paton.
They doubled their lead later in the period off a faceoff in the Whalers’ zone. Payton Hu won the face-off and Colin Jang ended up with the puck in the corner. Jang went down to Hu, and he found Brayden Sinclair to the right of the slot, and he sniped it past Paton for his twenty-third of the season.
White Rock capitalized on a power play in the second period, pressing with the man-advantage, and eventually banking one in off of Zach Shaughnessy after the Hawks goalie made a few strong saves.
Carson Hemenway made it a two-goal lead again for the home team, taking a long clear from Ryan Bal behind the Hawks’ goal line and going on a breakaway as he was released from the penalty box, deking past Paton and sliding home an easy goal.
The goal gap was again closed to one though before the end of the frame, as Chris Fortems got the puck on a forecheck in the Hawks’ zone and threw a pass in front that went off an Ice Hawk and into the net.
With just over a minute left, White Rock went to pull their goalie but before he could make it off the ice, the Whalers turned over the puck to Hemenway. Hemenway found Merriman along the right side and he fired it into the gaping net from the red line to seal the 4-2 win.
