Going into another mid-week game last night against the Salmon Arm Silverbacks, the Merritt Centennials could only hope that their second game on a Wednesday in as many weeks would be every bit as good as the first one.

Back on September 30, the Cents went on a scoring rampage, pummeling the visiting West Kelowna Warriors 9-1 in easily their best outing of the young 2015-16 BCHL season.

Merritt’s top line of Gavin Gould, Zak Bowles and Colin Grannary combined for an eye-popping 16 points, as everything the talented trio touched turned to gold.

Nineteen-year-old Gould lead the scoring parade with a goal and five assists, while Bowles, 20, had a hat trick and two assists and Grannary, 18, one goal and four helpers.

“It was one of those nights where everything was working for them,” Cents assistant coach Matt Samson said. “They were clicking — using their speed, using each other. Hopefully, we’re not going to need that kind of production from them on a regular basis in order to win games.”

Other Merritt marksmen that night were rookie Ryan Finnegan with his first in the BCHL, fellow first-year American Nick Jermain, recently-acquired Mitch Lipon and assistant captain Nick Fidanza.

Lipon also picked up two assists, as did 17-year-old winger Henry Cleghorn and defenceman Mark O’Shaughnessy.

Earning the win in net for the Centennials against the Warriors was new Merritt goaltender Cole Kehler, a 17-year-old native of Altona, Manitoba who spent the past two seasons with the Kamloops Blazers of the Western Hockey League.

The six-foot-three-inch, 200-pound  Kehler looked cool, calm and collected in his debut as a Centennial, stopping 30 of 31 shots fired at him by a West Kelowna squad that undoubtedly would like to forget the night ever happened.

“It was a good goaltending performance by Cole, aided by a strong defensive effort from the rest of the team,” Samson said. “Whether the score was 3-1, 9-1 or 15-1, I liked the one goal against. It showed that we were doing a lot of the little things that add up to winning games.”

Unfortunately, the Cents were unable to maintain their momentum from the Wednesday night whitewash of the Warriors, as they proceeded to lose both of their weekend outings.

Friday, in front of over 2,200 fans at the South Okanagan Events Centre, Merritt allowed the host Penticton Vees to score four times in the first period, and three times on the powerplay, en route to a 6-1 drubbing of the Centennials.

Projected NHL first-round draft pick Tyson Jost was a Cents-killer Friday as the gifted Vees’ forward scored once and added four assists.

“Unfortunately, we dug ourselves a bit of a hole early taking penalties and allowing them to score on the powerplay,” Samson said. “They’ve got some good players, and you can’t give them those opportunities.”

Penticton goalie Anthony Brodeur, son of NHL future Hall-of-Famer Martin Brodeur, needed to make just 20 saves to pick up the relatively easy win in net.

At the other end of the ice, Kehler was busy all night as the Vees peppered him with 33 shots — many, if not most, of the grade-A variety.

Special teams hurt the Centennials. In addition to giving up a trio of powerplay goals to the Vees, Merritt was only able to capitalize once on eight of its own man-advantage chances. Twenty-year-old Ryan Forbes spoiled Brodeur’s shutout attempt with a mean-nothing tally just 50 seconds before the final buzzer.

While losses to always-tough and always-über-talented Penticton are the norm for most teams in the BCHL, Merritt’s 5-4 defeat at the hands of the Surrey Eagles late Sunday afternoon had to hurt in a big way. Prior to Sunday, the Eagles had won just once in seven regular-season games this season after finishing in the league basement last year with a total of just nine wins.

Playing on the Olympic-sized ice at the South Surrey Arena, Merritt let a trio of one-goal leads slip away in the loss to Surrey. Donovan Ott’s second tally of the night with less than five minutes remaining in regulation proved to be the game winner for the Eagles who also got goals from Kyle Star, John Wesley and Darius Davidson.

“Surrey has two lines that are very good,” Samson said. “Their top six forwards can definitely put the puck in the net. It’s not about their record last year or right now. They’re a BCHL hockey club, and they’re not to be taken lightly.”

Replying for the Cents were Bowles, Jermain, Brett Jewell and 16-year-old Tyler Ward.

In his third start in a row, Kehler stopped 30 of 35 shots, while at the other end of the ice, Surrey’s Justin Laforest turned aside 28 Cents’ pucks sent his way.

Going into Wednesday’s match-up with Salmon Arm, Merritt was sitting in fifth place in the Interior division of the BCHL with a 4-6-0-0 record and eight points, one less than Vernon in fourth and two behind third-pace West Kelowna.

The Silverbacks are off to a great start this season after missing the playoffs last year. They are 5-1-2-0 after eight games — good for 12 points and second place in the Interior, two back of the Vees.

“Coming off two losses, we have to have a shift-to-shift mentality from our guys,” Samson said. “The first 20 minutes will be big. In Trail (September 19), against Nanaimo at the BCHL Showcase, and in Penticton, we fell behind early. It’s not a recipe for success against anybody.”

Samson also stressed the importance of his team staying out of the penalty box, and doing a better job when they are down a man. The Cents currently have the worst penalty kill in the BCHL, having surrendered 16 goals on 45 opposition chances for a less than stellar 64.44% PK rating.

“We’ve played our best hockey five-on-five. I’d love to play that way for 60 minutes every game,” the coach said. “But specialty teams are a part of the game, and you have to deal with them.”

Overtime

The Centennials made room for Kehler on their roster by releasing 20-year-old netminder Anthony Pupplo from New York, who had started the season as Merritt’s number-one puckstopper but struggled in recent games.

In another player move, Merritt acquired 20-year-old defenceman Ryan Coghlan last Thursday, and released 17-year-old Tyler Wickman.

“The opportunity presented itself to add another veteran on the blueline,” Samson said. “[Ryan’s] a guy who’s played in the Western Hockey League, and played 23 playoff games with Nanaimo last season. Everything we heard was that he was a quality guy and a good player.

“It was tough letting Tyler go,” Samson added, “but when you have an underage kid that can go and play big minutes and in all situations in Junior B or at the major-midget level rather than be in and out of the line-up in the BCHL, the first situation is much better for his development.”

Merritt’s next home game is against Nanaimo in a Thanksgiving weekend matinee match-up on Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. The Clippers are coached by former Cents’ bench boss Mike Vandekamp (1999-2001).