Playoffs Gm. 5: Pod Sends Sockeyes Home, 3-0

Paton recorded a masterful 28-save shutout – and his first of the playoffs – in Game 5. After the game, he chatted about his determination to stay “even-keeled” and “battle through all the emotions” of pressure-filled hockey.

He was thankful to his teammates, notably defenceman Cole Dennis-Sharma, who blocked two shots. Again and again, Paton has presented the right angle to the opposition and his defensive corps takes care of the rest. “It’s been working well for us,” Paton pointed out.

Coach Rogers called Paton “dynamite” with the shutout his “best performance of the series.”

Paton also made his own puck luck. By the third period, the shorthanded Sockeyes were desperately up ice and rang a shot off Paton’s post.

Off that broken play, the Whalers counterattacked. Centreman Zach Sherwin deked at centre ice and passed the puck to captain Chris Fortems on the wing. Fortems peeled back, and defenceman Dylan Travis’s slapshot zinged into the top corner past a screened Montgomery.

“I love it! Ecstatic, there’s nothing else really like it,” Travis exclaimed after the series victory.

Tao of Travis

Travis, a Whaler rookie, is part of a long line of American players from Washington state who have laced up and put on the ‘W’ crest. This tradition goes beyond the current Whalers club that joined the Pacific Junior Hockey League in 2018 – all the way back to the original Whalers franchise in the late 1980s.

During border line-ups, Travis uses that time to mentally prepare for practices and games, to visualize situations. “I love doing the drive. I don’t mind it,” he added.

He certainly won’t mind another two weeks of playoff hockey as the Whalers will again face their opponents from last year’s Tom Shaw Conference final: the Delta Ice Hawks.

Last season, White Rock defeated Delta in a bitter six games that ran high on emotion and heart-thumping exhilaration. Will the Pod do the same in 2023?