With two weeks to go before the start of the playoffs, Powell River Kings find themselves with just a couple of games in which to iron out some problems.
While the sparse schedule will allow the remaining couple of players to get healthy for the best-of-five series against Victoria Grizzlies starting on March 15, the team still has some hurdles to overcome.
Losses on the weekend, 5-4 in overtime to Surrey Eagles on Friday and 5-2 to Nanaimo Clippers on Saturday, were good ones in the sense of overall game but both ended badly due to a couple of miscues.
Surrey came into Powell River as the Mainland Division leader but the Kings met the challenge head-on and could easily have earned a win.
Surrey’s Adam Tambellini scored the first two goals in the game but the Kings answered with four of their own by Evan Richardson, JP Villeneuve, Stephen Hiff and Drew Dorantes to lead 4-2 after two periods.
Kings looked very capable of holding off the Eagles until top scorer Brady Shaw fired a puck against the grain that snuck in off the post to goalie Jonah Imoo’s left at 16:04.
Kings sagged a bit after that one and in just over one minute the Eagles scored and forced overtime 4-4.
In the extra four-on-four five-minute period, Luke Ripley took a holding penalty, his fifth minor of the game, and Tambellini set up in the slot where he won it with his fourth goal of the game.
Mental mistakes and little things cost the Kings a victory in a game where they outplayed the opposition for 55 minutes.
“We’re just not used to playing with the lead,” said coach and general manager Kent Lewis after the game.
There were more positives than negatives, however, and he said, “They are a good hockey club, but we did a lot of good things tonight. Bottom line, though, is confidence and knowing how to put things away. In this game we just needed to be in a two-man cycle and put it away but we exposed the puck too much and turned it over too much. We were playing too impatient a kind of hockey and we’ve got to learn to resist that urge.”
On Saturday the Kings played a confident, great first period and on a powerplay goal by Richardson owned a 1-0 lead.
Nanaimo, who needed this win to stay ahead of Alberni Valley Bulldogs for home ice advantage in their playoffs, came out with more urgency in the second and scored two early goals before Richardson got his second of the game to tie 2-2 at 8:25.
Clippers took the lead for good at 11:41 when Josh Bryan’s shot from 40 feet went off Imoo’s catcher and into the top of the net.
While the Clippers were putting the pucks in the net the best, the Kings could do was a shot from Villeneuve that landed on top of it.
Clippers made it 4-2 on another long shot that beat Imoo to his left. When the Kings pulled him for a two-man advantage on a powerplay late in the game, Nanaimo sealed it with a shorthanded empty net goal.
This season, despite the scores, their best performances have come against Penticton, Victoria and Surrey. Kings can skate with any team in the league but at the moment it appears they are the biggest obstacle in their search for success.
They have two games to sort that out with one in each of the final two weeks of the BC Hockey League schedule.
At 7:30 pm on Friday, March 1, Kings host Salmon Arm Silverbacks at Hap Parker Arena.
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