Sun Valley Suns keep BDHL title 5-4 over Moose

Robinson scores game winner at Snow King

By JEFF CORDES Express Staff Writer Snow King Center was jam-packed, throbbing with music and drink. It was frigid and the only parking to be found was between high snowbanks and squeezed tightly along the road. The cowboy atmosphere was electric for Saturday’s Black Diamond Hockey League tournament championship game between the defending champion Sun Valley Suns and Jackson Hole (Wyo.) Moose. About two-and-a-half hours after the opening faceoff, the great majority of the estimated 2,000 spectators left the rink subdued and disappointed. The Suns celebrated at mid-ice and readied the champagne toast after silencing the Moose 5-4. Suns second-year do-everything forward/defenseman DJ Robinson, who scored the game-winning , said about the lack of Wyoming post-game noise, “It’s good to hear the crickets in that building.” Five different Sun Valley Suns players including Robinson scored goals Saturday during the 5-4 win over the host Moose. It gave the Suns an unprecedented second straight BDHL tournament title. Incredibly given the rich and fiery 19-year, 82-game history between the ski resort hockey programs, there wasn’t a single power play in the game. Only four penalty minutes were whistled—matching roughing minors. Coach John Burke’s Suns became the first team in the five-year history of the BDHL tournament to win two consecutive Joe Casey Memorial Cups, and the first to win the title playing away from home. Burke said, “Without the special teams, it was man-to-man hockey. Whoever had the will, intensity and luck was going to come out on top. And that night, the intensity from both teams was off the charts. You could feel it in the rink. “It’s hard for me not to breathe for three hours on the bench, but that’s the way it was. At crunch time like that, it’s awesome. Our guys played with intensity, positivity and support of each other. They got into a real battle, and they battled as hard as they could and won that hockey game.” Moose nemesis Robinson, who beat Jackson Hole with an overtime shootout game-winner on Hailey ice in December, added after Saturday’s win, “Last year we won at home 5-0 (BDHL title game win over the Moose). It always feels better to come out on top in a neck-and-neck game like that.” Hall of Famer Marty Flichel, 43, the Suns seventh-year center who scored the all- important fourth goal breaking a 3-3 tie, said, “It was a well-played hockey game. We just got one more bounce.” Bounces of the puck certainly played a huge role in the outcome, enough for Moose head coach Bob “Howie” Carruth to say afterward, “What a game! What a contest! We love playing Sun Valley. But there were some weird goals.” Suns defenseman , 38, a two-time Kelly Cup-winning player for the ECHL Idaho Steelheads who was playing in his first BDHL title game, said, “We knew we were playing a well-coached team with guys who can beat you.” Hay added, “We had a pre-game skate and knew we had to be responsible in our own end. Everybody was committed to the job, and we had good leadership. The turning points, I felt, were how we responded when we first got behind and after the Moose caught up.” “Really, we just tried to worry about ourselves. We knew if we did our job, we’d be right there in the end,” said Hay.

Suns reply to Moose goals

Coach Burke challenged his new Suns team at the first practice last fall to make defending its BDHL tournament title the season’s No. 1 priority. The Suns (16-7) bolstered by first-year contributors like Hay, goalie Bobby Bowden and Swedish forward Rasmus Andersson started like gangbusters—going 9-1 in the first 10 including a key New Year’s home sweep of the Moose. Problems surfaced afterward, including a 3-5 stretch against a series of strong teams. Special teams weren’t great. Burke constantly put his players in different slots because of injuries and absences. “Since our 9-1 start, we never seemed to have a set lineup. No one was used to each other,” he said. “We had five weeks of bad starts where we were chasing the game. We were inconsistent in the last half, although there were stretches when we were really good. “Were our special teams working at the end of the season? No. But it’s always next guy up for us. Because of our depth, it’s a good team. For the tournament, we needed all 20 guys caring for and trusting each other. We had to keep our composure when it counted.” Burke decided to shuffle his forward lines for the BDHL tournament trip to Jackson. When he sat down to look at the final forward line formulations, Burke said he liked what he saw. Yet a new wrinkle developed when the Suns learned they would be playing only one game instead of two at Jackson Hole, with Park City dropping. It threw a wrench into Burke’s successful two-goalie rotation of Bowden and third-year netminder Matt Cooper. The coach spent the lead-up to last weekend’s tournament trying to be as diplomatic as he could to the pair of goalies. Cooper, last year’s 5-0 shutout BDHL winner over Jackson Hole at Hailey’s Campion Ice House, got the nod—although Cooper split in his two games against the Moose this season including a 3-0 loss at Snow King Center back on Dec. 15. It was Cooper suffering the first bad bounce on Saturday. On Jackson Hole’s first shift, dangerous University of Minnesota-Duluth wing Drew Akins came busting across the crease with a hard shot that Cooper blocked—but the puck ricocheted away and deflected off a Suns defenseman’s body and into the Idaho net for a 1-0 Moose lead at 87 seconds. It was the first and only Moose lead of the game. But it gave Carruth’s team a lift. Remember, the Moose were 5-0 in BDHL tournament games played on their home ice since 2015 with a 33-11 scoring advantage including Friday’s 6-2 semi-final win over Bozeman. The Suns answered with three goals in 11 minutes. Andersson scored his 11th goal on passes from his linemates Dylan Shamburger and their new center Justin Taylor. Max Tardy made no mistake from the slot on a pass from the corner for a 2-1 lead, the assists going to linemates Nick Curry and Spencer Brendel. With two minutes left in the first period, Andersson knocked the puck away from a Moose player at the blue line and sent leading Suns scorer Shamburger in for his 10th goal. It could have been 4-1, but Moose goalie Nick Krauss flashed out his foot to stop a near-certain bid by Bryan O’Connell with a minute left. Robinson said, “Rasmus is a tenacious young player, and Shammy was hungry for the win.” But the Moose capitalized on a Suns clearing mistake to swarm the offensive zone with its No. 1 line of A.J. Sanders, Tom Hartnett and Akins. It was just a matter of time before Hartnett beat Cooper from the center slot with 38 seconds left, on passes from Akins and Sanders. “Drew can find the open guy as well as anyone,” said Burke. “That’s the best line in the BDHL. We concentrated on stopping them, but we couldn’t,” said Burke about the Moose trio who combined for 45 of 165 Moose goals during the 30-game Jackson campaign. With its two-goal lead reduced to 3-2 after one period, the Suns had another surprise in store. Just 14 seconds into the second period, Hartnett went hard into the offensive zone boards and centered a pass that Sanders tipped past Cooper for a 3-3 tie game. “The pass came from a bad angle and it deflected off a stick,” said Burke. “Things were changing rapidly. After that third goal, I told Bobby (Bowden) to get ready.” Would Burke make a mid-game goalie change? It would be uncharacteristic for a coach known for trusting his players. Flichel, who broke a pane of glass with a shot during the pre-game tune-up, postponed Burke’s ultimate goalie-change decision by scoring his first goal of the season to restore the Suns lead to 4-3 at five minutes. There was no question Flichel was determined to score. Burke said, “Marty has a killer shot and great release. He was going to shoot that night.” Flichel is the all-time Steelheads record holder with 436 games, 148 goals and 260 assists in nine Boise seasons from 2002-10. All game, he won critical face-offs whenever he was up against Moose center Sanders. And he whipped off shots. He came down the left wing and let loose with a cannon that deflected off a Moose defender and past Krauss for the goal. Robinson, Flichel’s wing, had a front-row seat. “I saw Marty wanted to shoot so I went to the net for a tip or a screen. Krauss is a really good goalie, and he read the original trajectory of Marty’s shot. Hitting the defenseman slowed the puck and it went into the net.” The Moose had one more answer. Sanders pushed the puck forward from the neutral zone to rushing defenseman Dan Dupont, who beat Cooper for a 4-4 game with eight minutes left in the second. Burke quietly changed goalies and the game resumed. He said, “When both teams are playing as hard as they were, you’ll see ugly, greasy goals, and that’s what they were. It wasn’t Coop’s fault. Sometimes adversity will happen. There had been a bunch of bad bounces and breakdowns. “Sometimes you have to make a call like that to get your team going again. It was a tough decision.” The Suns picked up the pressure for the rest of the game. Suns defenseman Stephen Inman broke in and rattled a hard shot off Krauss’ chest. It took a great defensive play by Moose defender Nate Goss-Wolliner to keep Andersson from scoring the fifth goal. More Suns pressure in the offensive zone kept the Moose on their heels in the third period, as the visitors outshot Jackson Hole 12-4 in the final 20 minutes. The Moose kept clearing the puck from their zone, avoiding Suns attacks. Burke said, “We were making them go 200 feet. Our guys were pouncing on pucks, winning the battles along the boards, getting back on defense and getting their sticks in the passing lanes. Those are the things that win hockey games. “So much of hockey is making great decisions at both blue lines, what I call ‘the river.” We played great at ‘the river.’ We had guys blocking shots at the end of the game. They were sacrificing it all. Team players pick up their game. Everyone was a big-game player for us.” With about 13 minutes left, Moose coach Carruth double-shifted his powerful first line, gambling for the go-ahead goal. But Sanders and crew came up empty, and the Moose started feeling pangs of weariness. Not surprisingly, Flichel figured importantly in the decisive goal, which, like many of Saturday’s goals, was a little weird. But there was nothing weird about the speed Flichel displayed rushing into the zone. It was intimidating. Robinson said, “Marty dumped the puck in the zone and it went behind the net. Their goalie went out to handle it—but Marty was on him so quick. There was a little miscommunication between the goalie and the defenseman, and the puck came out in front. “I was trailing the play and saw the puck coming out in front with the goalie still out of the net. It was on edge, a knuckle puck. I had to decide whether to handle it, or just shoot. I shot it because I could see the goalie coming back quick. It was a big relief when it went in before he got there.” The decisive goal made it 5-4 with 11 minutes remaining. “Nick won’t leave the crease unless he feels he needs to,” said Burke about the goalie. Bowden wasn’t tested much, but he was huge when it mattered—stopping an Akins slapshot, using his pad to deflect a Sage Welch boomer from the point and Sanders’ cannon from 25 feet. With four minutes left, Suns defenseman Mike “Taco” Curry threw a blanket over Hartnett along the boards. “Taco was phenomenal,” said Burke about the Suns leader who has helped Sun Valley to a 83-42 record and three league championships since his arrival in January 2014. Sustained pressure by the Suns in the closing moments was so great that the Moose couldn’t pull goalie Krauss (25 saves) in favor of an extra attacker in an effort to tie the game and send it into overtime. The Moose even had a faceoff in the Suns zone with 1:56 remaining after Bowden just stopped a rolling puck from crossing the goal line at the corner of the net. And Krauss still stayed on the ice. Robinson said, “We had a one-goal lead and were still trying to play offense and getting a lot of offensive zone face-offs. We had a deeper team this year. I think they (the Moose) were getting tired and we had a little more in the tank.” It was the second straight year that the Suns (16-7) benefited from goals by five players and relied on their defense to beat the Moose (22-8) in the BDHL final. Last March, the Suns defeated Jackson Hole 5-0 at Hailey’s Campion Ice House. No. 1-seeded Sun Valley finished its championship season winning four of its final five games. No. 2- seeded Jackson Hole dropped three of its final four contests, all at home. The Suns, 4-1 this season in games with the Moose, have now won seven of the last nine games against the Jackson Hole rivals after being swept in four games back in 2017. Sun Valley is 14-10 against the Moose since the BDHL started. “It was a team effort,” said Robinson. Burke added, “It was two good organizations in ski resort towns going at each other. You have to play a hockey game to beat them. We’re good for each other.” Check today’s Express web site for a game summary. SUNS NOTES—Suns home attendance was down a little this year, in part because the Black Diamond Hockey League tournament was played at Jackson Hole instead of in Hailey. This season, in 19 home dates including the Christmas Week Suns and Future Suns exhibition, the Suns attracted 7,705 fans including 3,576 on Friday nights and 3,713 on Saturdays, plus the 416 at the exhibition game. That averages out at 405 fans for each home game during 2018-19. Last season, In 19 home dates including the Christmas Suns-Future Suns exhibition, the Suns attracted 8,183 fans including 3,534 on Friday nights and 4,649 on Saturdays. It averaged out to 431 fans. But the BDHL home playoffs are included in the 19 home dates. The playoffs drew 1,200 fans to two Suns games. Two seasons ago, the Suns drew 5,582 fans in 14 home dates, averaging 398……. This year’s top crowd was 1,000 in the first home game against Jackson Hole Dec. 28, and the season lows were 201 Friday against Midtown Mafia and 275 Saturday against Philadelphia Warriors…..Snowstorms affected turnouts for February home games……..Top weekend crowds were 1,877 fans in the New Year’s home series with Jackson Hole, and 1,056 when Bobby Farrelly’s East Coast Gutter Snipes were here Jan. 18-19…..

Comments from the BDHL final

 No one was happier to join the championship celebration than first-year Suns defenseman Darrell Hay, 38, the grandson of a railroader from Kamloops, B.C., Canada. The 6-0, 205-pound blueliner was an member of the first two Idaho Steelheads Kelly Cup championship teams, in 2004 during Idaho’s inaugural ECHL season, and again in 2007. He and Steelheads and Suns teammate Marty Flichel from Saskatchewan were named to the ECHL All-Decade Team from 2000-10. Hay’s family was there to join him for Saturday’s game, and he tightly held his sleepy-eyed youngest throughout the post-game celebration at Snow King Resort. Hay said it was the first time he had his family with him to help him celebrate a championship, and that made the occasion special. Originally drafted by the NHL in 1999 and a Steelheads player through 2008, Hay played professional hockey in Norway, Czech Republic, Italy, Japan and Great Britain from 2009-16. He said he loves playing with the Suns because “the guys know what it’s all about.” Hay added, “It’s so nice to be in a close game that means something, once again.” Wearing a Boise Hawks hat and touting his love of baseball as well, Hay said he was looking forward to visiting Portland (Ore.) and watching his father help head coach Mike Johnston in the upcoming playoffs. Don Hay, now 65, was a Kamloops firefighter when he started his pro hockey coaching career in 1986. He became the winningest coach in WHL history with 750 wins in 19 seasons for Kamloops, Tri-Cities and Vancouver. Former Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Mike Johnston asked Don Hay to join him on the Winterhawks staff last summer, and Hay has been a Portland assistant ever since.

 The Suns coaching staff was dressed to impress for the BDHL tournament. Head coach John Burke and assistant coach Ryan Enrico both wore neckties, although Burke’s look was more subdued because his varsity letterman jacket was buttoned up to cover the presence of the tie as much as possible. He had a similar look at last year’s tournament. Burke said, “Mike Curry stepped back and took a look at what I wore last year and said, ‘It looks good, but the look still says, I don’t give a crap.’” I told him that’s what I was going for.”

 The announcement of the George Jacket winner is always a highlight of a winning Suns locker room. On Saturday night at sudsy Snow King Center, coach Burke came into the locker room carrying the covered George Jacket and said, “I don’t have any idea who to give this to.” The injured team captain Ryan Enrico grabbed the jacket and said, “I’ll do it. The guys are giving the jacket to someone who, if he’s not here, we’re not here.” And Enrico handed it to coach