The Prince George Spruce Kings are making a lot of noise while they climb up the B.C. Hockey League standings and the Salmon Arm Silverbacks could not find a way to drown out the racket.
The Kings skated to a 6-3 win over the visiting Silverbacks with a crowd of 949 watching Saturday at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena.
Chong Lee collected two goals in what turned out a difficult and costly win for the Spruce Kings (14-10-1-2), who are now nine points behind the Chilliwack Chiefs for second place in the Mainland Division.
Adam Burnett, Tyler Anderson, Jarod Hovde and Travis Schneider also scored for Prince George. Kings captain Brett Mennear finished with four assists, completing an eight-point weekend.
Carson Bolduc, a 20-year-old former Prince George Cougar, collected a goal and an assist for the Silverbacks (10-17-1-0), who remained sixth in the Interior Division.
The Kings were leading 1-0 with nine minutes gone in the first period when starting goalie Aris Anagnostopoulos was forced to leave the game after he tweaked his knee while moving through the crease. The 18-year-old, on loan to the Kings for a month from the junior B 100 Mile House Wranglers, appeared comfortable and made two great saves in his first career BCHL start until he went down. He was taken to hospital where it was determined he’d suffered a strained ligament.
Tavin Grant came in cold and stopped 30 of the 33 shots for his sixth BCHL win.
“I really feel for Aris, that was his first BCHL start and he looked good and I feel so bad for him he went down like that,” said Grant. “It’s a hard game to win when it’s 4-3 with about 10 minutes left and we just had to get pucks deep and do the things the coach said and we’d be fine. There wasn’t any panic at the end of the game.
“The fans here always fire us up and always cheer us on no matter what the score is and the way the building was formed they’re basically in the game with us. It’s very fun to play here.”
The Kings were held to just one goal on seven power-play chances, otherwise it might have been decided a lot sooner. The Silverbacks had just two power-play chances and did not score. They got into penalty trouble early on and paid the price when Mennear won the offensive zone face-off and got the puck back to Burnett, who blasted it into the net five seconds after Landon Fuller began serving his second roughing penalty.
Before the ice had dried from the first intermission flood, with the teams playing 4-on-4, Mennear fed the puck back to Anderson and the big defenceman took off and went coast-to-coast, ripping the puck past goalie Trevin Kozlowski for a 3-0 lead.
“I just got the puck and beat that one (defenceman) in the middle and just buried my head and let the shot go,” said Anderson, a hard-shooting defenceman who now has eight goals this season. “That was just a gutsy effort on our group and we pulled through with a desperate team coming through here. They battled hard for the full 60 so it just shows the character we have in that room here.”
The Silverbacks answered eight seconds later with an equally impressive individual effort from Bolduc. He took the puck at centre, got behind enemy lines and went wide across the crease to beat Grant.
Josh Latta cashed in a 2-on-0 chance, 3:36 into the second period, but Hovde restored the two-goal cushion late in the period, taking a cross-ice feed from linemate Ethan de Jong.
The Silverbacks drew some life after killing off a two-man disadvantage at the end of the period which carried over into the final frame. Bolduc set up Elijah Barriga for a one-timer in the slot which left Salmon Arm trailing by only a goal. Colton Thomas, an 18-year-old former Cariboo Cougar midget who now plays for 100 Mile House, drew the second assist.
“We did a pretty good job on the penalty kill and battled hard but we didn’t show up for the first period,” said Bolduc. “It’s frustrating, we had 38 shots but couldn’t bury them. (The Spruce Kings) keep in waves and they can roll four lines. They have good leadership in Brett (Mennear) and their goalie (Grant) is outstanding and their D are big and strong so it’s hard to get around them.”
Grant, who posted his first career BCHL shutout Friday in the Kings’ 8-0 win over Coquitlam, made a handful of key saves late in the game to keep his team ahead and the Kings ended it with empty-net goals from Lee and Schneider.
The Spruce Kings have now won all but two of their last 12 games at home, going 11-1-0-1 over that stretch. All but eight of their 27 games so far have been home games.
“They pick up on things quick – it’s a pretty mature group and they’ve really bought into what we’re doing and how we want to play and they work hard in practice all week and that’s translated into how they play in games,” said Spruce Kings head coach Chad van Diemen. “We got to capitalize with so many home games at the start and hopefully that will give us confidence to go play well on the road, which we have done in our short stints on the road.”
The Kings' home-ice record will get tested this week when they host two of the best teams in the league. On Thursday they play the Chiefs (18-7-4-0), who are battling Wenatchee for top spot in the Mainland Division. Then on Friday, the Kings will take on the Island Division-leading Victoria Grizzlies (18-5-2-3).
LOOSE PUCKS: The Siverbacks have yet to name a replacement for fired head coach Brandon West, who was relieved of his duties Nov. 9. West, who grew up in Prince George, coached the Silverbacks for five years, three as the head coach, after starting his BCHL coaching career with the West Kelowna Warriors. Silverbacks assistant Misko Antisin served as head coach in Saturday’s game.
