Seven of a possible eight points at home has Merritt back in the playoff race

Despite some frigid temperatures both inside and out, the Nicola Valley Memorial Arena is feeling a tad warmer these days thanks to the stellar play of the Merritt Centennials in recent games.

Prior to Wednesday night’s game against the Coquitlam Express, the Cents had picked up seven of a possible eight points from their last four outings — all at home. The result of Wednesday’s away game was not available at press time.

This past week, the Centennials ushered in the new year with a well-deserved 5-4 victory over the Express, then earned a point in a 4-3 double-overtime loss to the West Kelowna Warriors on Saturday.

The pair of solid post-holiday performances came on the heels of two impressive wins in a row before the Christmas break — 3-2 over the Vernon Vipers and 5-2 against the Trail Smoke Eaters.

While Merritt isn’t out of the woods yet (they continue to occupy sixth spot in the BCHL’s Interior division), the Cents can at least see the two teams immediately above them (Vernon and Trail) on the horizon in the battle for the fourth-and-final playoff position.

The New Year’s Eve tilt between the Centennials and Express saw the two sides trade goals back and forth all night long until Mitch Lipon scored the game winner 7:24 into the third period.

Earlier Merritt goals were scored by Gavin Gould, Colin Grannary, Tyler Ward and affiliate player Carter Shannon. The majority of Coquitlam’s scoring came from their top line. The trio of Jackson Cressay, Colton Kerfoot and Austin Mcllmurray each tallied once and combined for five points to keep things interesting on the scoreboard.

“We were far better overall,” Cents head coach and GM Joe Martin said, “but [the Express] were opportunistic on their few chances, so we found ourselves in a tight game.”

Despite allowing a couple of goals that he’d like to have back in the early going, Merritt netminder Cole Kehler made important stops when needed down the stretch to give his team a chance to win. The former Kamloops Blazer turned aside 37 of 41 shots thrown at him, while Coquitlam’s Lawson Fenton was good on 44 of 49 shots.

The very cleanly-played affair saw just 12 minutes in penalties assessed. The Cents went one-for-three on the powerplay, Coquitlam zero-for-one.

In sharp contrast, Saturday’s cross-Connector matchup between the Cents and Warriors was its usual messy piece of business with over 60 minutes in penalties, including two misconducts to Warriors players.

Ward and Grannary staked Merritt to a pair of one-goal leads; however, West Kelowna managed to even the score on both occasions, and go ahead by one at the 11-minute mark of the second period.

It stayed that way until the first minute of the third period, when Gould scored arguably the nicest Cents’ goal of the season thus far — shorthanded, on a breakaway, while being dragged down from behind by a Warriors’ pursuer.

Neither team could tally the go-ahead goal or game winner through the remainder of regulation and the first five minutes of four-on-four overtime.

Unfortunately, the hockey gods deserted the Centennials during the second period of OT. While playing three-on-three, West Kelowna was awarded two penalty shot opportunities within 20 seconds of each other — first for the Cents deliberately dislodging their own net, and then for a questionable hooking call on Grannary as the Warriors broke in two-on-one.

Kehler managed to stop West Kelowna’s first penalty shot, but not Liam Blackburn’s second effort.

A single point from the overtime loss was not much comfort for a Merritt team that had thoroughly outplayed its opponent, and managed to stay out of the nonsense that always seems to accompany a West Kelowna game.

One of the Warriors’ misconducts went to defenceman Rylan Yaremko for his first-period mugging of Grannary after he accidentally contacted the West Kelowna netminder. The second 10-minute trip to the sin bin was assessed to Warriors’ captain Kyle Marino for inappropriate comments directed at the officials.

The most galling Warrior infraction, however, was a two-minute bench minor given to Kylar Hope during the first overtime period for holding onto Nick Jermaine’s jersey while the Merritt player was awaiting a pass by the West Kelowna players bench.

Cents’ coach Martin was understandably upset by the West Kelowna antics, feeling that they took away from the flow of the game, and showed a lack of respect for everyone involved.

Martin would love to have seen his team bury the Warriors by capitalizing on the 10 powerplay opportunities afforded them, but unfortunately it didn’t happen.

“I thought we had some really good looks,” the coach said. “We wanted to try a few new things, especially on the five-on-threes, but we just took too long to set up.”

Martin will be hoping  to make the best of man-advantage situations in his team’s return match against the Warriors on Friday in West Kelowna, as well as against the visiting Vernon Vipers on home ice Saturday.

The Centennials made one roster move during the Christmas break, trading 20-year-old defenceman Ryan Coghlan to the Coquitlam Express for future considerations.

Coghlan, who hails from Nanaimo, was in his first season with the Centennials.

Merritt head coach and GM Joe Martin said that the decision to move Coghlan was a mutual one. The veteran BCHL blueliner was looking for a fresh start, while Martin was eager to give some of his younger defencemen more playing time.

Coghlan was in a Coquitlam uniform when the Express played the Centennials on New Year’s Eve in Merritt.