The Powell River Kings and Vernon Vipers will face each other in the Fred Page Cup finals for the third straight year after winning their Game 6 meetings with the Surrey Eagles and Salmon Arm SilverBacks respectively.
For the Vipers, it was a huge effort from Dylan Walchuk leading to another road win that got the job done. Between the two conferences, visiting clubs went 10-2 in conference finals.
The Vipers counted three goals in the opening frame at Salmon Arm's Sunwave Centre including a pair 13 seconds apart just before the end of the period by Bryce Kakoske and Walchuk, who had also opened the scoring at 4:18. David Killip had tied the game prior to the two quick Vernon goals at the midway point of the frame.
In the second, Walchuk completed his hat trick with a goal near the six-minute mark. Salmon Arm refused to lay down though and fought back with goals from Brett Knowles and Jayson Reardon to get within one going into the third.
Walchuk added a fourth at 6:05 of the third to make it 5-3 before James Friedel got the SilverBacks within one again but that's as close as they'd get.
Walchuk doubled his playoff goalscoring total on the night and now leads the Vipers in playoff tallies.
In Surrey, the Powell River Kings piled up a ton of shots on their way to a 4-1 series-clincher and after a scoreless first period, they struck for three in the second as Daniel Schuler, Chad Niddery and Cohen Adair tallied.
The Kings made it 4-0 in the third on another Schuler goal before the Eagles' Daniel Gentzler got Surrey on the board.
Powell River posted period shot totals of 16, 21 and 10 and outshot Surrey 47-30 in the game. Niddery and Adair's goals came on the power play as the Kings went 2-5 while holding Surrey 0-4 with the man advantage.
Next up is the Fred Page Cup finals which start Friday, April 1 in Powell River. The Coastal side has home-ice advantage this year and will try to atone for consecutive defeats by Vernon the last two season. See the playoff bracket for all series game dates.
