The Prince George Spruce Kings got down early but did not let that get them down.
Trailing 4-1 before it was 14 minutes old, they made a game of it, coming back to make it a one-goal deficit before eventually falling 8-5 to the Langley Rivermen Saturday in Langley.
Source Kings newcomer Nicholas Papineau, a 20-year-old centre from Quebec who joined the team on Monday, scored his second goal of the game on a Prince George power play 3:06 into the third period.
That made it 6-5 and it stayed that way until the 16:59 mark, when Zachary Benayon score his first BCHL goal to restore a two-goal cushion for the Rivermen.
Dalton MacGillivray scored his second of the game into an empty Prince George net to seal it.
Ethan Merner, Ryan Schelling, Sebastien Bradshaw, Ilya Rogovsky and Luke Phoh also scored the Langley. Langley shooters chased starting Prince George netminder Carter Wishart, who allowed four goals on 11 shots.
Ryder Green replaced him after MacGillivray scored Langley’s fourth goal and blocked 14 of the 17 shots he faced.
Bodee Weiss picked up a 23-save win in goal for the Rivermen
Kazumo Sasaki, Will Moore and Brady Anes were the other Kings goalscorers.
The loss dropped the Spruce Kings ninth-place Coastal Conference record to 7-13-2-1. Langley improved to 11-9-4-1, seventh in the Coastal.
Spruce Kings, who opened the weekend with a 5-2 win in Coquitlam, return to the road for games Friday in Victoria and Saturday at Cowichan Valley.
The Spruce Kings will host the Rivermen Dec. 13-14 at Kopar Memorial Arena, their final games before the Christmas break.
