After three weeks away from their fans, playing in hockey rinks not nearly as friendly as Rolling Mix Concrete Arena, the Prince George Spruce Kings are home again with a difficult task ahead of them this weekend.
They take on the BCHL Mainland Division-leading Langley Rivermen in a two-game set tonight (7 p.m.) and Saturday night.
The last time a Prince George crowd saw the Spruce Kings in action was Oct. 11 when they beat the Merritt Centennials in overtime.
They've played eight games since then, all on the road. The Kings' record over that stretch (one regulation win, four regulation losses, one overtime loss and two ties) wasn't great. Consequently, they lost their division lead to Langley after going through the longest uninterrupted stretch of road games they will encounter this season.
"It will be nice to have some home cooking," said Spruce Kings head coach Adam Maglio.
"We do go back on the road again next weekend for a tough trip (to Trail and Wenatchee) but we're excited to get home and get in our own beds and get in our locker-room for a weekend of home games. Our guys seem energized. Some sickness ran for our room for a couple of days this week so we took it a little easy and now we're picking it up."
The Spruce Kings (5-7-2-3) are five points behind the Rivermen (10-3-6-0), who have played one fewer game than Prince George.
"We need to jump on them early, we want to win our division so as of right now, Langley's the team to catch," said Maglio. "We can make up ground on them so it's good timing for us and we're going to be ready to play hard and play well.
"They're a pretty quick-strike team. They have guys who are good shooters and they get in those good spots and find ways to bury the puck. Their goalie (Braedon Fleming) has played well against us but we have to get more pucks on him to really test him and we haven't done that yet. The shots have been pretty low against Langley lately."
Maglio is not looking for any excuses; a loss is still a loss, but three of those five defeats in the past three weeks were by the slimmest of margins. In two of them the Spruce Kings outshot their opponents. There's also the fatigue factor to consider, mental and physical, which had to have taken a toll on a team that played three games in less than three days in each of the last two weekends.
"For the most part, the team did well and I thought we did a lot of good things on the road," said Maglio. "In our losses it was probably four of five minutes of bad hockey for us and on the road the home team's going to jump on you when you let your guard down for those minutes within a game.
"Probably one of our best road games this year was last Friday in Chilliwack (a 3-0 Kings' victory) by our guys keeping it simple. We executed special teams and it was a real good step for a young group.
"In Langley, we were pretty good too. You give up 21 shots and you'd hope for a better result."
The Kings are 0-1-1-0 so far against the Rivermen, losing 5-4 in overtime Oct. 14 in Langley, then dropping a 2-1 decision in regulation time on the road last Saturday.
The Rivermen have two players averaging a point per game or better. Brendan Budy, a Denver University recruit, has nine goals and 25 points in 19 games and ranks seventh in the BCHL scoring race. New Hampshire-bound Angus Crookshank has collected nine goals and 14 points in 11 games.
One other forward the Kings will have to be wary about is Florida native Connor Marshall, a Brown University signing who played in the USHL last year in Lansing, Mich. Marshall has a goal and eight assists in nine games since he came to Langley, one of seven Rivermen who have locked up NCAA scholarship commitments.
Ethan de Jong (Quinnipiac, 2018) is the only Spruce King on a point-per-game-or-better pace with eight goals and 14 assists for 22 points in 21 games, good enough for 11th in league scoring. Ben Brar (7-12-19) is not far behind, in his second season with the Kings, while captain Kyle Johnson (Yale, 2018) has nine goals and 18 points so far this season.
Look for Patrick Cozzi and Dustin Manz, the American connections on the Spruce Kings roster, to end their goal-scoring droughts this weekend. Cozzi, 18, a native of Greenlawn, N.Y., started the season with four goals in his first four BCHL games but hasn't scored in the 16 games since then. Manz, a 19-year-old Lake Superior State recruit for next season, has gone six games without a goal.
Evan DeBrouwer, 20, will get the start in net for Price George. He's started all but seven games and has earned his spot lately as the Kings' go-to guy in net. DeBrouwer's goals-against average has dropped to 2.85 (10th in the BCHL) and he has a respectable .903. save percentage.
"He was outstanding against Chilliwack and was very good again against and he's been consistently good, night-in, night-out," said Maglio.
Aside from a few sniffles, the Spruce Kings are healthy going into the weekend.
"Our guys do a good job of taking care of themselves off the ice - through our strength and conditioning program and yoga and recovery, that really helps and its paid some dividends in this last three weeks of being on the road," said Maglio.
