The Coquitlam Express hosted the Surrey Eagles on Friday night at the Train Station for their Teddy Bear Toss Night. The Eagles came out on top in this one 7-4.
The Express came out red-hot with a Christian MacDougall powerplay goal just 40 seconds into the game to kick off the bear tossing. The Eagles did respond fairly quickly, but the Express jumped back out to the lead courtesy of a Arlo Merritt breakaway goal. The Express scored twice on their first four shots but got into a lot of penalty trouble in the opening frame and saw the Eagles score three unanswered to close out the period up 4-2.
In the second frame, the Express put on a much stronger display of hockey, outshooting the Eagles 14-6. Each team found a goal in the period – Christian MacDougall found the Express’ marker for his second of the evening. On that note, the Express also had a powerplay goal called back in what was a questionable decision by the officiating staff. Most importantly, the Express took strides in the right direction in terms of clawing their way back into this hockey game. They controlled the momentum in the frame and they planned to carry that over into the third period.
The third and final frame was certainly an entertaining one as the Express managed to claw within one courtesy of a Ryan Tattle goal. That was as close as they’d come, though, as the Eagles would go on to add a pair of empty net goals and close out the hockey game 7-4.
The shots were dead even at 30-30 after 60 and the score wasn’t an accurate representation of how the game went. If not for some penalty troubles, one gets the sense that the Express should have taken this one – the Eagles were given seven powerplay opportunities in the contest and scored on one. On the flip side, the Express went 1/2 on their opportunities.
The Express get a shot at redemption as they travel to Chilliwack to take on the Chiefs for a Saturday night meeting. Puck drop for that one is at 7:15pm.
#AllAboard | #WeAreAllExpress
