Brent Lashuk's hat-trick effort made all the difference Friday night to the Prince George Spruce Kings.
He singlehandedly supplied the margin of victory in a 6-3 win over the Surrey Eagles in front of 1,392 witnesses at the Coliseum.
Although the Kings never trailed in salting away their 23rd victory, their BCHL Mainland Division opponents gave them plenty of trouble.
The Eagles arrived Friday for the two-game series having unloaded their top two snipers - 20-year-olds Nicolas Pierog and Brett Mulcahy - earlier this week in advance of Friday's trade deadline. Together, they accounted for 49 goals and 73 points for the Eagles. It didn't take long for Surrey to get some payback in return.
Skylar Pacheco had opened the scoring for Prince George with a bit of a weird goal 7:06 into the game.
Pacheco let a shot go from the point with winger Chad Staley standing behind the net and the puck bounced off the end board, flipped into the air and went in off the back of goalie Devon Fordyce. But the Eagles got that one back 49 seconds later when Anthony Conti, picked up in the Pierog trade from Penticton, made no mistake redirecting a tape-to-tape cross-ice feed from Darius Davidson.
The Kings peppered Fordyce with 17 first-period shots and took the lead again at 12:20. Brogan O'Brien cruised in from the right wing and shovelled in the pass from linemate Justin Rai.
The Kings got goals from Rai and Lashuk to build a 4-1 lead before the 10-minute mark of the second period.
They needed that cushion to withstand a powerful pushback mounted by the Eagles, who made life a lot more difficult the rest of the period for Kings goalie Alex Murray but came away empty-handed.
Conti, a six-foot-three, 205-pound rookie, played on a line with veterans Nathan Renouf and Braeden Russell and that combination generated numerous scoring chances that either missed the net or were stopped by Murray.
Surrey closed the shot gap to 25-23 and the Kings had to consider themselves fortunate to be up by three heading into the third period.
The Kings were a lot better in their own end in the final period. Lashuk made it 5-1 with his 15th of the season at 1:17 but the Eagles weren't quite done. Chase McMurphy, a 19-year-old Alaska-Fairbanks recruit who came over in the deal that sent Mulcahy to Vernon, scored on a pileup in front of the Kings crease with nine minutes left. Then at 16:30, Renouf deflected Matthew Dawson's point shot on a Surrey power play.
Conti just missed making it real interesting late but nailed the goalpost with six minutes to play.
The win left the Spruce Kings with a 23-13-2-2 record, second in the division and seven points behind first-place Langley Rivermen, who beat Chilliwack 5-0 Friday. Surrey (17-23-1-0) remained third.
The same teams meet again tonight at the Coliseum (7 p.m. start).
NOTES: Aside from the deal last weekend with Chilliwack to acquire 20-year-old defenceman Cooper Rush with 19-year-old D-man Caleb Thompson and futures going to the Chiefs, the Spruce Kings did not make any other roster moves as the BCHL trade deadline arrived Friday evening.
The six-foot-seven, 226-pound Rush suffered a knee injury in Sunday's game in Chilliwack and is expected to miss at least the next two weeks.
