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Trailing from the start, Kings drop weekend finale |
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Written by TED CLARKE, Citizen staff
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Sunday, 30 November 2008 |
Sam Muchalla wasn’t scoring with his stick.
So with less than three minutes to go and his team losing badly to the Trail Smoke Eaters, the 150-pound leading scorer for the Prince George Spruce Kings decided he’d try to settle a score with his fists, and started swinging ’em with 150-pound Travis St. Denis. The flyweight duel, one of six in a scrappy third period, ended when Muchalla lost his balance and fell to the ice.
It didn’t matter that no punches really landed. The Smokies had already taken off with a 4-1 victory Sunday.
The loss was the second of the weekend for the Kings. They were defeated 5-4 in overtime Friday by the Quesnel Millionaires, and followed that with a 3-1 win Saturday over the Westside Warriors. The Smokies started their trip with a 4-1 win Saturday in Quesnel.
“I don’t want to have to make excuses, but we were a little bit fatigued going back-to-back with a game one night and another one the next afternoon, and it kind of showed on the ice,” said Kings centre Adam Baldassarre. “They’re a strong team and they came out hard and it made it difficult for some of us.”
The Kings were fortunate to get out of the first period tied 1-1 with the Smoke Eaters, who had numerous scoring chances in the opening frame, including Ryan Bulach’s opening tally. Near the end of the period Wes McLeod picked up a Trail clearing attempt that had bounced off Baldassarre and slapped a low shot through the legs of Paul Barclay.
The Smokies kept the gas cranked in the second period and mustered 18 shots at Kevin Genoe, two of which burned him. Paul Mailey jumped on the loose puck fed into the slot by Chad Gehon and buried it low to restore the Trail lead. Just 28 seconds later, J.F. Boisvert was allowed to walk in with the puck from the low faceoff circle and found daylight showing between Genoe’s legs. The storm continued in the Kings’ end of the ice and some alert netminding from Genoe was the only reason it wasn’t 6-1 by the second intermission. Adam Gummer applied the exclamation point with a third-period power-play goal.
“We kept a third guy pretty high on the forecheck and we kind of hemmed them in and took away their speed,” said Bulach. “They’re a good team, but we just played one of our better games of the year.”
The Kings showed sporadic flashes of offence but couldn’t get any sustained pressure while being outshot 41-19. When they did get close, they’d fan on their shots or have their passes blocked by the Trail defence.
“We had some good opportunities down low and we crashed the net a few times in the second period but Barclay seemed to find that puck and we didn’t get it high enough,” said Kings assistant coach Bayne Koen. “We wanted our guys to carry the momentum after a short turnaround, less than 24 hours after (Saturday’s) game and we have to get used to it.”
The frustration factor probably hit a season high for the Kings and they showed their lost tempers by dropping the gloves. They were looking for a spark to help ignite something positive for the Coliseum crowd of 1,275, but the fully-charged Smokies continued to short-circuit those efforts.
“That was just frustration, we got down a goal and there wasn’t really much of an option,” said Baldassarre. “We got put in a bad spot trying to get the momentum and I guess things got out of hand. We had a good turnout and we wanted to make the fans happy, so if (fighting) is what they like, they got a good game I guess.”
The Kings (15-12-1-3) remain in sixth place in the BCHL’s Interior Conference, four points back of fifth-place Penticton. The win left the Smokies (18-9-2-1) tied for third with the Westside Warriors, who lost 4-2 Sunday to the Regency Millionaires in Quesnel.
“We’re nothing fancy, we work hard, we want to beat you to pucks, finish our checks and be responsible, and if we do that and frustrate you, we can dominate you,” said Trail head coach Jim Ingram. “If you go out trying to do things just OK or just good enough you’re not going to make it in this league. It’s just too competitive, and we had a good night.”
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 30 November 2008 )
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