Wednesday, Nov. 04, 2009

Ams go 4-1 on road trip

HERALD STAFF

KAMLOOPS, British Columbia -- Drydn Dow scored his first two WHL goals Tuesday night in helping the Tri-City Americans steamroll the Kamloops Blazers 8-3 at Interior Savings Centre.

The U.S. Division-leading Americans (14-3-0-0, 28 points), who finished 4-1 on their five-game road trip, host Vancouver on Friday. Tri-City is the only team in the WHL still undefeated on home ice (6-0).

The Giants have won just two games on the road this season.

The Blazers (8-9-2-0, 18 points) have lost seven in a row after opening the season 7-1-2-0.

Five of the Americans' goals came on special teams, including Dow's first goal, scored on the power play just 3:08 into the game.

Kruise Reddick added a short-handed goal to give Tri-City a 2-0 lead, but Kamloops' Tyler Shattock cut the lead in half with less than a minute to play in the first period.

The Americans opened the second period with three goals in the first 4:46 as Neal Prokop scored his first with the Americans, Down tallied his second of the night and Brendan Shinnimin scored his team-leading 13th.

Brett Lyon scored for the Blazers to make it 5-2, but Tyler Schmidt's power-play goal gave Tri-City a 6-2 lead at the end of 40 minutes.

Kamloops' Jake Trask scored the first goal of the third to pull the Blazers within 6-3, but power-play goals by Adam Hughesman and Jordan Messier made it 8-3.

Drew Owsley finished with 25 saves for the Americans, who outshot the Blazers 49-28.