Bentham leads Canes past Royals

By Justin Seward - Lethbridge Herald on November 2, 2022.

Defenceman Nolan Bentham scored two goals to lead the way for the Lethbridge Hurricanes in a 5-1 win over the Victoria Royals on Tuesday night at the Enmax Centre.

“It felt great,” said Bentham.

“A couple nice passes set me up there and yeah it feels good.”

Bentham said it’s nice when things are clicking and it’s definitely a confidence booster.

“It was a team effort,” said Bentham.

“Everyone played well. I thought Meneghin had another good game on the backend there. So, yeah it was a huge win for our team.”

Bentham walked into a slap shot in slot that alarmed Victoria Royals goalie Tyler Palmer, as the puck squeezed between his arm and rolled into the net at 6:53 of the first period.

Zach Bansley and Ross Stanley drew the assists on Bentham’s second goal of the year.

Victoria tied the game at 10:18 of the first as Carter Dereniwsky found the puck off his initial blocked shot and banked the puck from the side of the net off Canes goalie Harrison Meneghin and in.

Jett Jones made the game 2-1 Hurricanes after whacking in his seventh of the season in front of the net as Palmer was caught out of position coming back to the crease at 4:12 of the second period from Tyson Laventure.

Bentham wired his second of the game off the post past Palmer at 13:32 of second on the powerplay to make the game 3-1 Canes.

Logan Wormald set up Bentham’s goal.

Joe Arntsen wristed a shot through a crowd to make it 4-1 Canes at 17:44 of the second.

Brayden Edwards and Stanley assisted on Arntsen’s fourth goal of the year.

Logan Wormald added to the scoring brigade 49 seconds into the third period on the powerplay as he took a cross-ice pass from Logan McCutcheon and wristed the puck past Palmer from the right faceoff circle.

Shepard notched the other assist on Wormald’s goal.

It was prior to tonight’s contest that the Canes were entrenched in seven one-goal games and Bentham said it was nice not to go down to the wire in every single game.

“It was nice to get a couple-goal lead there going into the third and yeah put them away, which is nice,” said Bentham.

Hurricanes head coach Brent Kisio thought his team responded well after a mediocre first period.

“You know I didn’t like our first period,” said Kisio.

“Give Victoria credit, I thought they came out and played real hard; they’re a well-coached team. That’s what happens when you play teams like that. But I thought we did a good job responding in the second and third period.”

In Kisio’s view, the Hurricanes just kept working and throwing pucks on net.

“You know we had a game plan,” said Kisio.

“(We) just felt like again if you get traffic in front of the net we’ll have success. We did a good job going low to high, and our defence did a good job finding some lanes there and we scored a couple of goals in traffic. And our powerplay stepped up and got us two goals.”

The Hurricanes now have a 7-8-0-0 record after the win.

The Canes went 2-for-5 and Victoria went 1-for-4 on the man advantage.

Lethbridge welcomes the Vancouver Giants to the Enmax Centre on Friday night.