Despite playing some great hockey on the road Powell River Kings find themselves in a 2-0 hole in their best-of-seven series for the Fred Page Cup.
Kings avoided facing Vernon Vipers for the fourth year in a row but may have an even tougher opponent in Penticton Vees.
Vees have owned the number-one ranking in Canada since the start of the new year and boast three NHL (National Hockey League) draft picks and 16 NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) commitments on their roster.
Kings, for their part, have been playing awesome hockey in the playoffs and, even losing 3-1 in the first game and 2-1 in the second, gave the Vees all they could handle.
In the opener on Friday the Kings played a near perfect 10 minutes but their first mistake turned into a goal for the ever-opportunistic Vees.
Their leading scorer Joey Benik intercepted a Brandan Smith pass and, on just the second Vees’ shot of the game, fired the puck by Sean Maguire.
His goal was followed by a second one two minutes later on the powerplay when the faceoff was won by Penticton back to the point and the slapshot was deflected in by captain Logan Johnston.
Up 2-0 going into the third Travis St. Denis opened a three-goal lead at 3:34 but Kings’ Daniel Schuler responded a mere 20 seconds later on a nice wrist shot that beat Chad Katunar high over his glove.
Kings continued to dominate the territorial play but couldn’t get any quality chances to beat Katunar and narrow the gap.
Final shots on goal favoured the Kings 43-28 but the statistic that really mattered was the 3-1 loss.
A determined bunch of Kings took the ice for game two on Saturday and again, in front of 3,000 Vees fans, worked extremely hard to even the series.
This time they solved Katunar early when Matt Scarth got the puck off a faceoff and worked it to the slot where he roofed a hard wrist shot at 7:21.
Kings silenced the large crowd as they blanketed the Vees’ offence and held them to just four shots in the first period and 23 in the entire game.
Nonetheless, Benik made his count for the second game in a row when he let a shot from 30 feet tip off Maguire’s catcher and into the net at 10:37.
Tied 1-1 after two periods a couple of bizarre calls and one non call resulted in the winning goal.
On a Vees’ rush, Bryce Gervais slid into Maguire in the crease and while the Kings were expecting a whistle or even a goaltender interference call, Vees’ Steven Fogarty put the puck in the empty net.
There was a brief consultation among the referees but the end result was the award of the eventual winning goal of the game.
“It wasn’t a good goal,” said head coach and general manager Kent Lewis, “but it counted. For us, there’s a lot of good things we did in the two games and I thought we controlled most of the play. But you’ve got to score goals and we had chances but we squandered them.
“Now it comes down to defining moments,” he explained, “and they capitalized on their chances and we have to be better on ours.”
Kings and Vees continue the series with game three and four at 7 pm on Tuesday, April 10 and Wednesday, April 11 at Hap Parker Arena.
If necessary, game five is Friday, April 13 in Penticton, game six at 7 pm on Sunday, April 15 at home and game seven Tuesday, April 17 in Penticton.
