Powell River Kings stumbled out of the gate in their weekend schedule losing 3-2 to Cowichan but recovered to win 4-2 and 5-3 over Surrey Eagles to keep their first-place chances alive.
They started on the road in Duncan Friday where they met their probable opponent in the playoffs. So far this year the Kings had yet to lose to the Capitals but there is always a first time and this was it.
After a scoreless but physical period and a half of hockey the two teams suddenly exploded for three goals in exactly 60 seconds.
First it was the Kings’ Jon Jutzi at 12:23, then the Capital’s Brett Knowles at 13:05 and then on a great solo effort Chris Williams at 13:23.
Kings looked to take the one-goal lead into the dressing room for the final period but Steven Schmidt took the puck behind his own net with 10 seconds to go, lost it to his check and in a scrum by the side of the net the puck popped up and over netminder Sean Maguire.
Schmidt admitted later, “I’m not a D-man and I got in a little trouble back there.”
Tied 2-2 going into the final period Capitals got the winner at 6:13 on a bad angle shot that beat Maguire on the blocker side and stood as the 3-2 winner.
There was no time to dwell on the past as the future, Surrey Eagles, rode the same ferry to Powell River as the Kings for two games.
Eagles were coming off a 5-1 win over Victoria Grizzlies and these games would go a long way in determining playoff opponents in two weeks.
Eagles got the jump on the Kings Saturday night when they went up 2-0 but after their second goal Kings answered immediately with a couple of their own by Daniel Schuler and Brendon MacDonald.
A turning point in the game might have come when Surrey defenceman Matt Cronin was ejected for a blatant blindside hit on Kings’ Brandon Tidy.
A light went on in the collective heads of Powell River and the Kings started to hit back and looked much fresher than the Eagles as Evan Richardson scored the winner at 15:12 and Matt Scarth put it away at 17:12, 4-2.
“We didn’t play very well in the first period and we knew that,” said Schmidt. “We were soft and we let them hit us. In the second Schuler threw a big hit that really got us going and we started being the aggressor.”
Game two didn’t have quite the energy of game one but still, the game was tied 2-2 after two periods on Kings’ goals from Teal Burns and Teagan Waugh.
Surrey took the lead 53 seconds into the final period 3-2 but just like the previous game Kings fought back to tie on Richardson’s goal at 1:12, took the lead on Schmidt’s powerplay marker at 7:17 and put it away 5-3 on Cohen Adair’s empty netter with one second to go.
The two wins pulled the Kings to within three points of Surrey in the standings but more than that Kent Lewis, head coach and general manager, was glad to have had stiff competition over the weekend.
“The thing that hurt us in Cowichan was lack of meaningful games,” said Lewis, “and where we erred was in the fact that we hadn’t played in a long time and you get out of sync a little bit. We knew it was going to be tough this weekend but I like how we responded. The kids dug down and worked real hard and we did some good things.”
A quick look at the standings reveals that the Kings still have a chance to overtake the Eagles for first place by winning their last three games on the road.
They are in Nanaimo against the Clippers on Friday, March 9, Victoria on Saturday, March 10 and back to Nanaimo for their last regular season game on Sunday, March 11.
DIVISION: Coastal Conference
TEAM GP W L T OTL PTS
x-Surrey 59 36 14 2 7 81
x-Powell River 57 37 16 2 2 78
x-Cowichan Valley 58 35 16 1 6 77
x-Coquitlam 57 35 18 2 2 74
Nanaimo 56 25 22 0 9 59
Alberni Valley 57 20 33 2 2 44
Langley 57 18 33 1 5 42
Victoria 57 20 36 1 0 41
