New month, same old result for the Prince George Spruce Kings.
The Kings fell 7-4 Friday night to the visiting Cranbrook Bucks, their sixth B.C. Hockey League loss in seven games dating back to the start of January for Prince George.
Blake Cotton struck twice to start the third for the Bucks on a five-minute power play to start the third period, goals that bookended around a shorthanded reply from Kings sniper Kilian McGregor-Bennett that briefly stoked the Prince George comeback hopes.
Jacob Fletcher put it out of reach 7:31 into the third with shot from the slot that capped the scoring.
Goals from Jack Silich and Tyler Wishart put the visitors ahead 2-0 before the game was six minutes old and that was enough to convince Kings head coach Alex Evin to call starting goalie Charlie Zolin to the bench and Ryan Sanborn took his place in the crease.
Owen Goodbrand gave the partisan crowd of 906 somethig to cheer about when he cut the lead on a Kings’ power play and JR Perdion scored his first of two in the game late in the period to make it an even count, 2-2 after 20 minutes.
Swedish defenceman Loke Sodergren restored the Cranbrook lead 15 second into the second period and Malachi Freh made it a 4-2 count with his first of the season, a high flip-in from just inside the blueline that fooled Sanborn and ticked off his glove into the net.
The sixth-place Bucks improved to 16-22-2-0, seven points up on the eighth-place Spruce Kings (12-21-3-0).
Cranbrook won has three of the four games in the season series, which wraps in a rematch Saturday at 6 p.m. at Kopar.
LOOSE PUCKS: Veteran Kings defenceman Ben LeFranc (wrist surgery) has resumed skating with the Spruce Kings but is still a couple weeks away from returning, while Markus Yim, one of the bright spots on the blueline in training camp, is listed as day-to-day. He tore ankle ligaments in a preseason game in Trail. Both have yet to play a regular season game this season… Kings defenceman Amran Bhabra played the 200th game of his BCHL career Friday.
