McNaught scores!

By Marc Weber - The Province - January 20, 2008

It wasn't a game for the faint of heart. It was a night for the muckers and the meddlers.

Yes, there were 65 shots combined in the Chilliwack Bruins' 3-2 shootout win over the Kamloops Blazers, but there were about as many checks, cheap shots and challenges.

There was also more banter between the benches than on The View and likely none of it was fit to air.

By the third period, fourth-liners were getting first-line minutes.

And with Kamloops (22-24-1-1) on Chilliwack's (22-20-3-1) menu next Friday and Saturday, it was likely a tasty teaser of tilts to come.

"They're not often like that any more," Bruins head coach Jim Hiller said of the game. "That was a physical game, multiple fights, pretty intense. It kind of had a playoff-type atmosphere."

It all started late in the first period when Bruins forward Randy McNaught turned a mundane, meandering game into a popcorn-pleaser in just 23 seconds.

Chilliwack's recent acquisition from the Nanaimo Clippers showed he might have a little Oscar Moller in him, firing a wrist shot top shelf on Justin Leclerc for his first career WHL goal at 17:29. Then he showed he definitely has some Oscar De La Hoya in him, unloading two right hands on Blazers skilled Slovakian Ivan Rohac after a scrum formed around the Bruins net.

Think Mike Tyson versus Peter McNeeley -- the kind of unfair fight that tends to wake-up a snoozer of a game, although in McNaught's defence Rohac was oddly keen. After another fourth-liner, Brayden Metz, put the Bruins ahead 2-0 at 6:51 of the second with a top-shelf job -- his third in two games -- the Blazers battled back.

First they crashed the crease --Mike Gauthier ran Bruins netminder Mark Friesen to spark a scrap --then they came back with the puck.

Brady Calla, from in tight on a two-man advantage, and Kenton Dulle on a rebound tied the game at 2-2 before the period was out. The Blazers have a remarkable 11 comeback wins this season, but this night, eventually, belonged to the Bruins.

Chilliwack got shootout goals from Mark Santorelli and Nick Holden, both on neat dekes, and Friesen turned aside Rohac and Juuso Puustinen for the win. Hiller started the game with his fourth line, that also includes Liam Darragh, and it turned out to be foreshadowing.

"Me, Metzy and Liam, we're really trying to get the energy going," said McNaught, who decided to make the jump to the WHL a couple of weeks ago. "We're playing pretty good together and that's the style we like to play. Crash and bang, whatever it takes."

The Bruins did lose Cody Smuk -- who along with Santorelli has played all 122 franchise games -- to an apparent shoulder injury after he was hit from behind by Alex Rodgers in the first period.