Finishing strong to end the 2021-22 season, the Sun Valley Suns had an excellent trip in sunny California, sweeping the Santa Rosa Growlers to come away with two one-goal victories last weekend. The Sun Valley Elite A men’s hockey team played two thrillers. A 4-3 win on Friday and a 5-4 overtime victory on Saturday with both games played at Santa Rosa’s Redwood Empire Ice Arena, a.k.a. Snoopy’s Home Ice, an homage to cartoonist Charles Schulz, who opened the arena in 1969. The series may have been the season finale for the Suns, but it was the first home series for the Growlers. History aside, the Suns trailed early on Friday, 2-0, but Sun Valley scored 4 of the last 5 goals to end it. Santa Rosa’s Alexi Kulikouskiy opened the game with a shorthanded goal, and then Justin Havriliak scored unassisted to put the Growlers up 2-0. Sun Valley’s Justin Taylor (Brenden McGovern assist) put the Suns on the board for the first time at the end of the first period. In the third period, Sean O’Grady had the game-winning power-play goal with eight minutes left. Forward Max Tardy had 2 goals, and defenseman Mike Curry had 2 assists while Bobby Bowden (6-6 record) finished with 23 saves. The Suns outshot the Growlers, 40-26. The Suns were 3-for-7 (43%) on power plays for the weekend, comparing well to their season average of 23%. In January, Santa Rosa and the Suns played for the first time, with the Suns winning 3-2 on a Darrell Hay game-winner and 12-2 at Hailey’s Campion Ice House. On Saturday, Santa Rosa jumped out to a 4-3 lead by the end of the second period, but the Suns reached down and mustered another comeback to score two goals in the third period to tie it and send the contest into sudden death overtime. The game went for only five minutes and a 3 vs. 3 format during overtime. Then, finally, forward Chad O’Brien (Tardy assist) found the net for the game-winner, giving first-year head coach Ryan Enrico a grand finale. It was also O’Brien’s second goal of the night. “I’ve never been so proud,” Enrico said. “I’ve asked for their very best all year, and they gave me that. So, I asked once more for their very best for the last 20 minutes, and the boys gave it all they had.” On Saturday, it was a complete team effort with four different Suns scoring: O’Brien (2), Robinson, Derek Grimes, and Tardy. In addition, assists were from Eric Demment (2), Dylan Shamburger, Ben Barton, Robinson, Justin Taylor, Doug Yeats, Sean O’Grady and Tardy. Matt Cooper (7-1 record) had 24 saves at the net, and the Suns outshot the Growlers, 39-28. Sun Valley improved its franchise record to 47-45-20 in 112 overtime games over 47 seasons by winning Saturday. They are 12-16 in 28 shootouts since 1998. Since 2009, the Suns have won 15 of their 31 overtime games Forward Max Tardy finished as the overall leader with 33 points (17 goals, 16 assists). Mike Curry had 22 points (2 goals, 20 assists) while injured Nick Curry still finished with impressive numbers with 19 points (12 goals, 7 assists) through only six games. Nick Curry also led the team in hat trick games with two. In those games, he scored 4 goals each. Tardy led the season with the most two-goal games with four, while DJ Robinson and Brendan McGovern had two. The Suns finish the 2021-22 season with a 13-7 overall record (9-7 home, 4-0 away).
