Moller leads Chilliwack's scoring cast Bruins 6 T-Birds 2: Leading man steals spotlight with 3 goals

October 18, 2007

By Marc Weber
The Province

CHILLIWACK --Through one month of the WHL season, the Chilliwack Bruins' supporting cast has put on an Oscar-worthy performance.

On Wednesday night, however, it was leading-man Oscar Moller who stole the spotlight.

The 5-foot-11 Swede was sensational in leading Chilliwack to a 6-2 win over the Seattle Thunderbirds at Prospera Centre, recording a hat trick -- included two pretty goals in a dominant first period that saw the Bruins hold a 19-4 edge in shots and a 3-0 lead on the scoreboard.

Coming into the contest, the Bruins (8-2-0-0) owed a large part of their success to secondary scoring with Colby Kulhanek, Brandon Campos and Jadon Potter combining for 15 goals. Moller -- a second-round pick of the Los Angeles Kings in 2007 -- did have three tallies through 10 games, but the centre clearly had more to give.

Against Seattle (4-1-1-1) he was easily the best player on the ice, using his speed and stickhandling to create space, shooting from everywhere and even throwing his weight around to outshine Seattle's trio of NHL first-rounders.

"I just let it happen and just enjoyed the game," said Moller, who took a stretch pass from Jeff Einhorn, split the Seattle defence and roofed the puck glove side on Tampa Bay first-rounder Riku Helenius just 43 seconds in. "I felt like I had good jump from the start, so I just kept skating."

With five minutes to go in the first, Moller one-timed a perfect diagonal pass from Mark Santorelli on the power play to make it 2-0.

Leading 4-1 early in the third, he danced out of the left corner, deked around two defenders and picked the top corner short side on backup Jacob De Serres to complete the hat trick.

"As soon as you get one goal, you're going to get a bunch," said Moller. "It feels really good, the pressure is off."

Michael Proudly was rewarded for a strong game with a goal, while Potter and Campos also found the net for the Bruins, who outshot the T-Birds 50-15.

Chilliwack now heads out on a five-game road swing starting Friday at Tri-City.

They expect winger Matt Meropoulis (hand) to make the trip and have also called up Scott Ramsay, their fourth-round pick in the 2006 bantam draft.