Keller Gives Braves A Shot After A Slow Start, He’s Put Up Mvp Numbers

The Spokane Braves to a man know where they wouldn’t be if Tyler Keller had stayed in Calgary.

They wouldn’t be back at Eagles Ice-A-Rena tonight for Game 3 of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League playoffs with the Osoyoos Heat.

The Braves are Spokane’s other junior hockey club, the Junior B team with players 15 through 20 years of age.

Tyler Keller is one of their two scoring threats, the KIJHL Murdoch Division Most Valuable Player. Lined up with German import Patrick Heinz, Keller has scored five of the Braves’ six goals in the first two games of a best-of-seven division championship series with the Heat.

The Braves - without head coach Gary Braun, who’s on suspension until Wednesday - trail the series 2-0 after losing 6-2 and 11-4 in Osoyoos, British Columbia.

Tonight’s game starts at 6:30. The series continues Wednesday at 7:30.

The Braves are in the playoffs for the first time in three years. They knocked off the division’s top-seeded team, the Beaver Valley Knight Hawks, in a bitter opening-round series, four games to two.

Keller and Heinz teamed up to end a thrilling second game that went into triple-overtime in Beaver Valley’s rink in Fruitvale, B.C.

The puck came off the boards. Keller jumped into the hole with Heinz on the wing on a 2-on-1 rush. Keller’s pass hit the tape of Heinz’s stick. Heinz deeked out the goalie, Keller said, and the Braves had the key win of the series.

Keller, 18, had hoped to play this season with a Junior A team in Calgary, the Royals. A death in the family set him back.

“I couldn’t finish their camp,” Keller said Monday.

Looking for options, Keller said he came across information about the Braves. He called Braun.

“I saw him in the spring at that camp,” Braun said. “He came here and started the season slowly. But once Patrick came back (from the Royals), Tyler started lighting it up.

“Now we play the legs off him.”

Don’t look for Keller back in Spokane next season.

The 6-foot, 185-pound center has an offer to go to training camp in August with the Junior A team in Camrose, Alberta. The Junior A team in Olds, Alberta, has also expressed interest, Keller said.

“He needs to work on his strength and his skating, but he’ll be a quality Junior A player,” said Braun, the former head coach and assistant with the Spokane Chiefs.

The Chiefs play at the major junior level, the highest grade in junior hockey. Junior A is a notch below. Junior B - the Braves’ level - is another cut below Junior A. Keller said the long-range goal is to play in college.

Knocking off Beaver Valley was a pleasant surprise.

“They were favored to win, that’s for sure,” he said. “The key was getting physical with them. They’re a smaller team.”

To bounce back into this series with Osoyoos, the Braves - who led the KIJHL in regular-season penalties - have to stay out of the penalty box, Keller said.

Keller lays credit for his MVP season on his linemate Heinz (“I wish I had a shot like his,” he says) and his coach.

“Braun is the best coach I’ve ever had,” Keller said. “He taught me everything I know. The success I’ve had here is because of him.”

Keller is probably too far along in his junior career to break into the Western Hockey League, Braun said.

“I’m not saying he couldn’t play at that level, but I don’t see that as an option for him,” the coach said. “I see him as a college player. He’ll get better as he gets older.”

The timing was right for a season here, both for Keller and the Braves.

“We were the lowest-scoring team in the league,” Braun said. “Without Tyler and Patrick this year, we would have struggled mightily.

“Tyler is tough on himself. He beats himself up a little bit. I hope we’ve helped him to relax, and to realize when you’ve got his kind of talent, you run with it.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo