Prince George Spruce Kings goalie Jesse Jenks was staring down two possibilities in the dying seconds of the game Tuesday night on the ice at the Coliseum.
Either he makes the save off Langley Rivermen winger Hunter Anderson from point-blank range, or the game goes into overtime and the next goal determines whether or not the Spruce Kings have to ride the bus that night for Game 7 in Langley.
Jenks made a split-second decision to stick out his leg and stopped Anderson's shot just before the buzzer to preserve a 3-2 win for the Spruce Kings that has them heading for the second round of the B.C. Hockey League playoffs for the first time since 2005.
"I saw (Anderson) just outside the crease so I knew he wasn't going to get it up top because he was so close and I just had to square myself to the puck and cover the bottom of the ice and he put it bottom side," said Jenks.
"Anything can happen in Game 7 and we knew we didn't want to go back to Langley. It's great for us to get it here in front of our home crowd. It was really loud out there."
The Kings open their next series Friday night in Chilliwack against the first-place Chiefs and Jenks is a big part of the reason why. The 20-year-old University of Alaska-Fairbanks NCAA recruit was brilliant in making 28 saves in Game 6 and has been giving the Kings quality goaltending all series.
As the game ended, the six-foot-four Anderson reacted to a tap on the leg from Braiden Epp and whacked the Kings winger twice with his stick.
That touched off a bit of scrum around the Kings' net and Jenks got into a wrestling match with Jacob Kearley.
No punches were throw but both Jenks and Kearley were assessed a fighting majors after the final whistle, which carries an automatic two-game suspension. But after reviewing the tape, the league changed both penalties to double-roughing minors and Jenks will be available for Games 1 and 2 Friday and Saturday in Chilliwack.
For Kings head coach Dave Dupas, who took over behind the bench in December 2010, to finally get the Spruce Kings over that playoff hump and into the second round gave him a long-overdue reason to celebrate in what has been an extremely trying, injury-plagued season for his team. Their top defenceman, Karan Toor, missed the entire season with a pubic bone injury and leading scorer Justin Rai played just 25 games before he was shelved with a season-ending concussion. Numerous other Kings players have missed extensive periods.
"Everybody knew what the (Kings playoff) record was and I was tired of talking about it every single season how we couldn't make it out of the first round and we've done it now, but we're not finished," said Dupas. "There was a lot of pressure on us to get out of the first round and coming into the season we thought we were going to have a real strong team, but everyone knows what happened.
"We've got some guys back now so we're not the same team that just chugged along all season and just barely kept out head above water, and that's going to give is a chance to beat Chilliwack."
In the series-clincher, the Kings were without forward Jarryd Leung (upper-body) and two of their mainstays on defence with Adam Clements (lower-body) and Viktor Dombrovskiy (concussion). That left Prince George with just four regular defencemen Cole McCaskill, Matthew Steif, Ryan Fritz and Alex Stoley, as well affiliated player callups Kolten Carpenter and Trevor Pereverzoff.
McCaskill picked up the slack in Game 6 and ended up playing about 45 minutes of the game when Fritz was handed a double minor and misconduct penalty that took him off the ice for 14 minutes. Steif and Stoley were workhorses as well, and together they allowed very few rebound opportunities for the Rivermen and moved the puck well out the defensive zone, an encouraging sign for the Kings heading into Chilliwack.
"We were short D so we got a lot of icetime and you can't complain about that," said McCaskill. "When Fritz went off that just added to the workload but the guys battled hard and didn't give in to their garbage, and I'm proud that we won the series.
"They came in here in Game 4 and got on our nerves and took the game and we knew we couldn't allow that to happen again. We kept it cool for the most part and just played our game and that's what we have to do going into Chilliwack.
"Jesse really stepped up in this series. I'm proud to call him our goalie and can't wait to see where we go with this."
The Kings' penalty killing was all a key factor in the six games. They allowed the Rivermen just five power-play goals on 39 opportunities in the series for an 87.2 per cent success rate, second only to Nanaimo among BCHL playoff teams. The Rivermen are a big team that likes to play an aggressive style and tried to use their size to intimidate, but it wasn't enough to bring about another premature end to the Kings' season.
"Obviously we're pumped up, we won the series and the next series will be a tough one with Chilliwack but we should be able to get the job done," said Kings centre Brogan O'Brien, who scored two goals Tuesday. "We just had to keep it simple and get the pucks in behind their D and cycle the puck low and we were very successful that way."
The Kings will host Games 3 and 4 of the Chilliwack series Monday and Tuesday.
