Practice was cut short by a half-hour Wednesday and that says a something about the sad state of affairs for the Prince George Spruce Kings.
No matter how hard they try, they can't seem to stay healthy enough to play hockey and maybe the shortened session at the Coliseum was to recognize the short-staffed Kings are about to get more than their share of icetime on the B.C. Hockey League road.
The Spruce Kings (22-19-0-4, third in the Mainland Division) leave on the bus this morning for Langley, where they'll play the second-place Rivermen (25-16-1-4) tonight. On Friday the Kings will take on the Mainland Division-leading Chilliwack Chiefs (27-16-1-1), followed by a Saturday date with the fifth-place Surrey Eagles (8-35-0-3).
"It's a chance for us to catch up, when you're chasing a team you want to play them," said Spruce Kings head coach Dave Dupas. "We didn't come into the season to finish third or fourth, or even second. The situation's changed a little bit for us right now but we want to play these teams right now and we want to catch them."
Since limping into January with a six-game losing streak, the Kings have won four of five games during their latest homestand. Their last game action was Friday at the Coliseum, where they beat Surrey 4-3 after edging the Eagles 2-1 the previous night. As the Eagles reminded Dupas last week, despite their record they always give the Kings considerable difficulty.
"We had to get our shots down and we kept them under 30 both games and we gave up only four goals in the two games, so that was good stuff," said Dupas. ""I don't know why, but they've been tough on us this year and were not expecting anything less playing our third game in three nights on Olympic ice against a fast team."
Already knowing they won't have top-10 BCHL scorer Justin Rai back from a concussion and reigned to the fact one of their top defencemen -- Karan Toor -- won't play at all this season to a groin tear, the Kings got more bad news on the injury front this week.
Winger Jake LeBrun, a power forward who had been playing well on a line with Jeremiah Luedtke and Braiden Epp, has missed five games with a wrist injury and won't play on the weekend. Also sidelined with injuries are defenceman Ryan Fritz (knee), forwards Daniel Nachbaur (broken hand), Rider Stoglin (wrist) and Marco Ballarin (groin).
"I hate talking about this all the time but it just keeps coming up all the time," said Dupas. "You get over it and try to move on and all of a sudden you get a whole new rash, now with five more guys out of the lineup. It keeps going on and getting worse. We're cursed, but with that said we still have to go down south and win games."
Luedtke will be reunited with Chad Staley on a line with Michael Buonincontri for the weekend.
"They just keep producing when they're together," said Dupas. "The problem with that is most of our scoring is there, so we have to get some of our other lines stepping up."
Epp will be on the left side on a line with Jarryd Leung and centre Brogan O'Brien.
With Fritz unavailable, that leaves the Kings with just five defencemen -- Viktor Dombrovskiy, Adam Clements, Matthew Steif, Cole McCaskill and Alex Stoley. Greydon Robinson, 18, acquired in a January trade from Salmon Arm, left the Kings shortly after just one game and went home to Calgary.
The Kings hope to fill a few of the gaps in the lineup with affiliated players from the Kooteney International Junior B Hockey League. Kings GM Mike Hawes has a few players lined up from Kamloops and 100 Mile House and was still on the phone Wednesday afternoon trying to shore up those commitments. The Kings will surpass 70 affiliated player games this season, by far the most in the BCHL.
"We could have used a lot more than that to fill the lineup but we couldn't get them," said Dupas. "We'll have three [affiliated players] this weekend but we'll still be shorthanded."
