Random thoughts from the season’s start

By Jacob Bestebroer- Chilliwack Progress - November 27, 2007

The Western Hockey League season is now 28 games old, and hockey fans have already seen a number of outstanding individual and team performances.

Mark Santorelli leads the WHL in points and Oscar Moller leads in goals — they’ve both led the way in the nightly highlight reel.

Bruins radio colour-man Jacob Bestebroer provides some of his most notable moments from the first two months.

The top individual performance for me has to be Moller’s from the third period of an Oct. 19 road game against the Tri-City Americans.

The Bruins trailed the Amerks 3-1 going into the third period of this game, but before the period was one minute old Moller had scored twice to tie it up.

Tri-City scored the next two goals to take a 5-3 lead. With two minutes left in the period, Moller set up Brandon Campos to bring the Bruins to within one. With 31 seconds left, Moller fired a laser from the point to tie the game at five. The Bruins went on to lose the game in overtime.

Moller’s three goals and four points in one period of play are team records that could last a long time.

My runner up would be Matt Esposito’s performance in the third period of an Oct. 13 home game against Calgary.

The Hitmen came into the game as the top ranked team in the Canadian Hockey League. This was their final game of a five game trip through the B.C. division.

The Hitmen started OK but after about the eight minute mark of the first period they looked tired.

After two periods, the Bruins were out-shooting Calgary 29-11 and held a 2-1 lead.

The Hitmen came out and dominated the third period, out-shooting the Bruins 16-2. Esposito was at his acrobatic best stopping everything that was thrown his way as the Bruins held on for a 2-1 victory.

My top performance by an opposing player goes to Portland’s Kurtis Mucha in a game that happened just three nights ago.

The performance of 18 year old goaltender in backstopping the Winter Hawks to a 4-3 win over Chilliwack Saturday is one that will be talked about for a long time.

After two periods of play, the Hawks led the Bruins by a score of 4-0 but the Bruins were out-shooting Portland 36-25.

Mucha saved his best for the final period, stopping 29 of 32 shots fired his way. Portland won 4-3 but were out-shot by a 68-30 margin. Wow.

My nominee for best debut by a Bruins player goes to Brandon Campos, who wore the black, white and gold Chilliwack uni for the first time during an Oct. 5 game against the Vancouver Giants. The Bruins had acquired the ex-Merritt Centennial off of waivers from the Everett Silvertips earlier in the week after forward Kenny Petkau left the team.

In his first game with the Bruins, the diminutive winger showed his offensive ability as he scored twice and added an assist in a 5-4 overtime victory over the Vancouver Giants.

Not a bad first impression.

Which brings me to my biggest surprises from early in the season — Colby Kulhanek and Jeff Einhorn.

Through the first 28 games, Kulhanek has 10 goals and nine assists. Last season in 70 games he scored twice and added five assists.

17 year old defenseman Jeff Einhorn was not even expected to make this team.

When Dylan Chapman went down with a hand injury, Einhorn was given his chance and hasn’t come out of the lineup since.

Both will play key roles as the Bruins try to bump their current slump and climb back to the top of the Western conference.

My final category is the best Jekyll and Hyde performance by a team, and Chilliwack takes the award for their outing Sept. 29 versus Prince George.

By the 17th minute of the first period, the Bruins led this game by a score of 5-1.

Game over right? Not so fast. The Cougars battled back, and with 1:10 left in the third period, the score was 5-4.

An empty net goal by Oscar Moller gave the Bruins a 6-4 win in a game that ended up a lot closer then it should have.