The Ice Hawks bench awaits Colin Jang’s celebration leap after tying the game 1-1 in the first period Thursday night, the first of four straight Hawks goals in the 4-2 Game 5 win.
The Delta Ice Hawks are again headed to the PJHL finals, after defeating the White Rock Whalers 4-2 in Game 5, taking the series 4-1.
The man-advantage played a big factor in this game; 5 of 6 goals in the game were power play goals, three of which belonged to the Ice Hawks.
White Rock scored first, on the power play, with just 9 seconds left in a double minor, as Jacob Dorohoy scored his first goal of the playoffs.
Less than a minute later, the Ice Hawks were circling and Yuji Akimoto sent a shot in on net. Mark Paton made the save, but Payton Hu tapped the rebound to Colin Jang, who took a couple quick shots and batted the puck out of the air and into the net.
With the score tied 1-1 heading into the second period, the Ice Hawks power play took over. Carson Merriman picked up the puck on the right side and circled into the middle, wide open and all alone, and picked his corner over Paton’s left shoulder to make it 2-1 Delta in the first half of a double minor penalty.
Carson Hemenway scored in the latter half of the power play opportunity, one-timing a shot from the left circle to finish off a pass cycle across the top of the zone from Ryan Bal and Alec Scouras, making it 3-1 Ice Hawks.
Towards the end of the period, with Delta again on the power play, Brayden Sinclair picked up the puck in the neutral zone and sped into the White Rock zone, blowing by his defender and going five-hole on Paton, which in the end, put the game out of reach for the Whalers.
The lone goal of the third period came from the Whalers captain, Zachary Sherwin, on the man-advantage, but that’s as close as they would come, as Delta won 4-2 and now advances to the PJHL Finals to take on the Ridge Meadows Flames.
