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Written by Dale Woodard
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Sunday, October 05 2008, 12:03 AM |
Now that’s how you lay the Smuk down.
After five games of silence on the scoresheet Cody Smuk has sounded off.
As a result, the Lethbridge Hurricanes forward nearly surpassed his entire offensive output last season in one game.
The Lethbridge Hurricanes forward tallied three times - twice in the first period and once more in the third — as the Hurricanes downed the Kelowna Rockets 7-3 Friday night at the Enmax Centre.
Now thanks to that hat trick performance, surpassing the four goals Smuk netted last year shouldn’t be a problem with 54 regular season games left on the slate.
“That was my first hat trick ever,” said Smuk, who wasn’t the only Hurricane to have a stats night as Colton Sceviour scored once and added four assists for a five-point night. “So I’m pretty excited about that and hope I keep scoring.”
The Rockets were first on the board when Jamie Benn poked home a fine feed from Stepan Novotny off the right wing for a 1-0 lead 13:04 into the first period.
Lethbridge came right back when Smuk tallied his first of the night, getting his stick on a shot from Dwight King with 4:10 remaining in the first to knot the tilt at 1-1.
But with Hurricanes Garrett Taylor cooling his heels for slashing, Kelowna regained the lead when Lucas Bloodoff scored on the power play at the 17:01 mark.
The Hurricanes found themselves on the power play shortly after Bloodoff’s tally and pulled the trigger on the man advantage as Smuk buried his second of the night from in close with 1:05 left in the period as the teams skated into the first intermission tied at 2-2.
“That first period was huge,” said Sceviour. It set the tone for our game. They came out strong and it was 7-0 shots (on goal for Kelowna). We kind of woke up and started playing our game and getting shots on net.”
It didn’t take the Hurricanes long to assume control of the game in the second period. Adam Chorneyko put the ‘Canes ahead for good on the power play, pouncing all over a juicy rebound after Rockets netminder Kirk Lazaruk stopped Sceviour in close for a 3-2 lead.
“That third goal gave us a one-goal lead after being outshot in the first period,” said Sceviour. “We had a better start in the second period. We got pucks on the net and got some goals. That definitely gave us some confidence so we could play our game.”
It took all of 1:25 for Lethbridge to double that lead when Carter Ashton got his stick on a Mitch Versteeg point shot, deflecting it past Lazaruk for a 4-2 lead.
“Those goals were obviously big goals for us,” said Hurricanes head coach Mike Dyck of the early second-period outburst. “But it all starts with the little things. We wanted to make sure the power play was good tonight and was going to create some offence for us. We just kept it simple and got pucks to the net.”
Smuk completed his hat trick bid and put Lethbridge up 5-2 in the process when he scored 2:24 into the third period to salt his first-ever hat trick.
“I was just trying to get the puck on the net,” said Smuk. “That was my goal for tonight, get as many pucks on net as I can. Luckily it went it off the D-man’s skate and in. So it’s good to be lucky sometimes.”
Sceviour upped the lead to 6-2 and notched his fourth point of the night on a shorthanded tally at the 11:35 mark of the third.
Novotny halved the Hurricanes lead with 3:59 to go before Chorneyko added his second of the night with 2:21 remaining to round out the scoring.
Coming off a 4-2 loss to the Calgary Hitmen on Thursday, Dyck put the call out to his veterans to step up and help snap the Hurricane’s two-game skid.
“I don’t really want to talk about our last game much,” said Dyck. “We put some challenges out to some of our older guys and they rose to the challenge and accepted that and played very well.”
We got back to an identity we want to maintain, and that’s pressure and speed and definitely being physical is part of that.”
Getting the power play was also crucial as the Hurricanes went three-for-five with the man advantage Friday night.
“Our power play that has been zero-and-whatever in the last three games and finally stepped up with a couple big goals in the second and we started rolling,” said Sceviour. “We changed things a little bit. We changed the setup. It was just execution.We got pucks to the net and we banged in rebounds. There wasn’t any pretty tic-tac-toe tap-ins or anything like that.
They were all greasy tip-ins and stuff like that. That’s what it’s going to take. We have to get guys and pucks to the net and that’s what we did there.”
The simple approach worked, said Smuk.
“I think we just kept it simple and started getting pucks in deep and driving to the net a lot more tonight. I think that helped us out a lot and created a lot of energy and we got some lucky bounces.”
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