The Prince George Spruce Kings came away with a point in a 5-4 double overtime loss to the Coquitlam Express Saturday night.
Coquitlam forward Brett Supinski tallied his 24th goal of the season with two minutes left in the three-on-three double overtime to send the host Express fans home happy.
It was the third game of a three-game road trip for the Kings that wrapped up the first half of the B.C. Hockey League season for both squads.
The Kings remain in third place in the BCHL's Mainland Division with a record of 18-14-0-4 and 40 points, while the Express improve to 13-17-1-4 with 31 points, fourth in the division.
"We knew it was going to be a tough road trip, especially with the short-handed staff we had," said Spruce Kings head coach Dave Dupas. "It didn't look good early on but we kept doing what we did to come back and I think we deserved a bit better. Jesse [netminder Jenks] came in when we were down 3-0 and he shut the door. That was huge for us."
Prince George found itself in a deep hole early in the first period when Dustin Cave, Daniel Fritz and Corey Mackin gave Coquitlam a 3-0 lead in a 10-minute span.
That forced Dupas to pull starting netminder Alex Brooks-Potts who allowed three goals on nine shots in favour of Jenks.
That move seemed to spark Prince George's offence as they scored four unanswered goals over the course of the next two periods to take a 4-3 lead.
Braiden Epp scored twice while Chad Staley, Jeremiah Luedtke added singles in the offensive outburst.
The Express didn't back down though, and Mackin, the BCHL's leading scorer, notched his second goal of the game and his 32nd goal of the season with three minutes left in regulation to send the game into overtime.
The Kings outshot Coquitlam 5-1 in the first four-on-four overtime period and the only shot in the second overtime frame was Supinski's which was the OT winner.
Prince George outshot the Express 37-33.
It was the second-straight game for Staley, the Kings captain, who'd been out for six weeks with a broken ankle.
The rest of the injured Kings - Justin Rai (concussion), Jarryd Leung (broken hand), Adam Clements (concussion) Riley Hawes (concussion) and Karan Toor (groin) - remained out of the lineup.
"Chad was back, but not really. We stuck him on the wing [instead of centre] because we didn't want him battling in the corners [with his ankle]," said Dupas. "He was on the power play on the point. He wanted to come back on the weekend and he did score a goal."
The Kings don't play again until they host Nanaimo on Jan. 3.
"We're going to need our whole team back then," said Dupas. "For the guys to go through this [with all the injuries] and for us to stay this close, they've battled and battled. It's good to see."
