Closing in on their first BCHL regular-season title, the Prince George Spruce Kings had added motivation to try to beat the Trail Smoke Eaters, as they did 3-1 Wednesday night at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena.
They wanted to win it for Ben.
Ben Poisson, their second-leading scorer, was not in the building that night. The 18-year-old centre was a couple kilometres away up 15th Avenue recuperating in hospital from a ruptured spleen and two injured shoulders, season-ending injuries he suffered in a high-speed fall into the end boards in a game against Coquitlam on Saturday.
Before Wednesday's game, the Kings players promised themselves they would deliver one of their best efforts of the season on fan appreciation night, their last regular-season home game of the year, and do the kinds of things on the ice that would make Poisson proud.
Well they did that, beating a tough Trail team to leave themselves just one point shy of wrapping up first place in the Mainland Division, with five games left to accomplish that task.
"Playing for Ben was a big focus for us, he's been a rock for us all year, he's been amazing and to see him go down like that, we wanted to get this win and we battled hard and played a great defensive game and had some guys step up and match their top players and that was a huge key to our success," said Kings captain Kyle Johnson.
"Beyond the scoring and the shot, there's a lot of little things Ben does - he's a leader and he's a hard player to play against and a force offensively and defensively and we'll miss him big-time."
Ben Brar, who racked up many of his 22 goals and 52 points playing left wing on Poisson's line with Ethan de Jong, will miss the hard-shooting Poisson and his positive influence in the dressing room the rest of the season but he's confident the Spruce Kings are deep enough with the forward group to fill the gap in his absence. Blake Hayward took on that role Wednesday and responded with a goal and an assist.
"It's really tough to lose Ben, especially on that line, but guys will definitely step up and come around for playoffs here," said Brar. "Blake's a shooter and he fills Benny's spot nice, so we just keep finding him in the o-zone and he'll rip the puck."
The Spruce Kings are in Surrey tonight
(7 p.m. start) and Coquitlam on Saturday and they'll be back on the road next weekend with two games in Chilliwack and a Sunday afternoon game in Langley to end the regular season. Johnson is confident that title-clinching point is not far away.
"We have some games to do it, we've given ourselves a good lead, but we want to close the year as strong as we can and roll with momentum all through the playoffs," said Johnson.
The Kings have one other injury. Twenty-year-old defenceman Oliver Lester has a sprained ankle which will sideline him at least six weeks.
