Utah Grizzlies: Victoria tops Grizzlies

VICTORIA, British Columbia — The Victoria Salmon Kings scored a five-on-three power-play goal with 2:44 left in regulation to defeat Utah 4-3 Wednesday night at Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre.

Utah fell behind in the first period on two power-play goals but battled back to tie the game with two quick goals in the second with Tim Verbeek and Vladimir Nikiforov scoring in the first 3:02 of the middle frame.

Trailing 3-2 late in the second, the Grizzlies again battled back with another power-play goal from Verbeek. 3-3 was the score going to the third.

In the third, Utah negated a power-play with a major penalty and eventually dropped two men down as Victoria scored the winning goal.

Tim Verbeek (two goals), James Sanford (two assists) and Vladimir Nikiforov (one goal, one assist) had multiple-point games for Utah.

GRIZZLIES NOTES: The Grizzlies recently signed Dennis Packard, 6-foot-5 and 233 pounds, is a 2001 draft pick of the Tampa Bay Lightning. He has 237 games of AHL experience with Worcester, Providence and Springfield and logged 31 ECHL games with Johnstown from 2004-2006.

Last year in Worcester, Packard had 11 goals and 19 assists in 76 games. In 2006-2007, the Ontario native logged 68 games with Providence and tallied six goals and 12 assists.