Steelheads drop third straight and will face elimination Friday night

The Idaho Steelheads fell behind in the game?s first minute as tonight?s game was all Salmon Kings; Victoria marched out to a 5-1 lead after one period, and finished off the Steelheads by a final score of 9-2 in front of 4,086 fans at the Save-On Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria. The Salmon Kings will have a chance to eliminate the Steelheads from the Kelly Cup Playoffs in Friday night?s Game Four. Patrick Coloumbe opened the scoring 40 seconds into the game to put Victoria up 1-0, but just over four minutes later Dan Welch beat Todd Ford upstairs to tie the game at 1-1. Between 7:11 and 8:53 of the first period, Aaron Brocklehurst, Sean O?Connor, and Olivier Filion all scored for Victoria. After O?Connor?s breakaway goal, Idaho starter Matt Climie was pulled from the net in favor of Rejean Beauchemin. Climie surrendered three goals on six shots faced. Olivier LaBelle would add one more before the period closed to put Victoria up 5-1. In the second period, Victoria received goals from Wes Goldie, Scott Howes, and Sean Landolt to take an 8-1 lead into the second intermission. Bryan McGregor scored the first goal of the third period to cut the Victoria lead to six goals, but less than a minute later Howes scored his second of the game to make the score 9-2; that?s how the night would finish. Beauchemin stopped 15 of 21 shots in relief of Climie. Todd Ford stopped 28 of 30 shots in the Victoria net. The Steelheads did not surrender more than seven goals in a game during the entire 2008-09 regular season; they never gave up more than four in a period all year. Game Four of this best-of-seven series gets underway at 8:05 PM Mountain Time on Friday night.