With a name like Marciano, you had to wonder if Nick Marciano was going to join in any extracurricular activities on Drop the Gloves and Sock It To ‘Em night.
Fighting is banned now in the B.C. Hockey League and the Prince George Spruce Kings did not acquire the smooth-skating defenceman in a trade earlier this week from the Cowichan Valley Capitals for him to be a latter-day Rocky.
They got him so he can set up plays like he did on the game-winning goal in Friday’s 4-3 win over the Cranbrook Bucks.
From his position on the left point with the Kings on the power play, Marciano took off with the puck and headed into the corner while traffic converged on the Cranbrook net. Out of the corner of his eye, the 19-year-old Princeton University recruit spotted a free lane to Kings captain Kolton Cousins standing in the face-off circle and wired the puck right on his stick for a one-timer that found the mesh behind goalie Nathan Airey.
That assist, with less than five minutes to play, was Marciano’s 18th point in 23 games this season and second as a member of the Spruce Kings and it couldn’t have come a better time for his him and his team. They needed some late-game heroics to pull this one out of the fire.
“I was just trying to help the team win and I had an opportunity and saw Cousins open,” said Marciano, a native of Connecticut. “I love looking for that seam in the middle and he got open and got his stick free, so he made my job easy.”
The win was the third straight for the Spruce Kings (13-7-0-0, third in Interior Conference), who are making a push to close the gap between themselves and the conference leaders, Penticton and Salmon Arm.
“You’ve got to work for every win and (a comeback) almost makes it more rewarding,” said Marciano. “They came a little close but we still got the win. The guys have made it super-easy to come in and play and be integrated with the structure and team and I attribute it to them. I think when we stick to our structure and process, we can beat anybody.”
The Kings tied it with seven minutes left. Colton Cameron fed a cross-ice pass to defence partner Ben LeFranc, whose shot missed the net and ricocheted off the end boards to Kilian McGregor-Bennett, who had an open net to shoot the puck in from a sharp angle.
That erased the Bucks’ 3-2 lead that Cranbrook worked so hard to achieve with a strong skating game in the opening two periods and an impressive power play to start the third period. They kept the Kings pinned in the zone for more than the opening minute of the period and with 14 seconds left in the penalty, Tyson Dyck jammed in a loose puck from the side of the net for his second of the game.
The Spruce Kings stifled the Bucks’ attack in a 3-0 shutout victory on Thursday, the first of a rare three-game series, but it was a different story in the rematch. Their bus legs well rested, the Bucks came out with a much better effort.
A sellout crowd of 1,000, the maximum allowed in the building during these pandemic times, came armed with bags of warm winter clothing for the Salvation Army to distribute to less fortunate folks and it didn’t take long for those fans to get their throwing arms in motion. Cousins triggered the deluge from the stands when he and John Herrington broke in on an odd-man rush after a Bucks defender fell at the blueline. Herrington left the puck for his linemate, who let got a shot from the slot into the top corner of the net for the opening score, 39 seconds in.
“It was nice to have that good start and we got two quick ones but we kind of sat back a bit and they took it to us and obviously it was a good push by us the end and I’m pretty of our group,” said Cousins. “When we’ve been down this year we haven’t found a way to push back so to do it at home on retro night was pretty special.”
Cousins says having new players arrive, like the well-seasoned Marciano, bodes well for a team that appears well-stocked for a deep playoff run. His pass made for the prettiest play of the night.
“That was beautiful, he’s only been here for a couple of days and he’s been fitting in well, on and off the ice, so it was great to have him out there,” said Cousins. “That’s another good d-man for us; we have so much depth and we’re real excited for this year.”
Rowan Miller doubled the lead on a Kings’ power play at 5:32 of the first, his 11th of the season, but the Bucks answered 35 seconds later. Dyck took a shot that somehow got through the padded armour of Kings goalie Aaron Trotter The visitors from the Kootenays tied it 2-2 just past the midway mark of the opening period, taking advantage of a delayed penalty which gave the Bucks time to get out the extra skater and Kellan Hjartarson hammered in a pass from behind the net. That goal spelled the end of the night for Trotter, replaced by Jordan Fairlie after allowing two goals on nine shots in the first 11 minutes.
Coming off back-to-back shutouts, Fairlie allowed just one goal on 14 shots the rest of the way. The Bucks got a late power play and created a brief 6-on-4 advantage in the dying seconds but couldn’t score. Hjartarson had the potential equalizer with 10 seconds left from point-blank range but the pass to him in front of the net slipped under the blade of his stick.
“I thought our effort and our work rate was certainly a lot better than it was (Thursday),” said Bucks head coach and general manager Ryan Donald. “I would have loved for us to come out with a win and get rewarded in that situation, but hats off to Prince George, they came back in the third period and had a good 20 minutes and earned it.”
LOOSE PUCKS: It was 80s theme night for the Spruce Kings, who came out sporting similar jerseys to that of Kings teams that played in the Peace-Cariboo Junior Hockey League. A group of about 25 former Kings players, including Stew Malgunas, Rick Kooses, Al Loring, Lyle Rose, Brad Camozzi, Logan Lampert, Russ Allen and Jim Ewert, attended the game and were introduced to the crowd during the first intermission… The jerseys the Kings wore in Friday’s game will be auctioned online on the team’s website, www.sprucekings.bc.ca... The Bucks and Kings will meet again Saturday at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena. Game time is 7 p.m.
