The puck drops tonight on the B.C. Hockey League playoff.
Just about everybody is invited except the Powell River Kings, who finished last in the Coastal Conference and are the odd ones out because they did not have a first-round playoff partner in the 17-team league.
The Prince George Spruce Kings (16-35-3-0) made it by virtue of the fact there’s an even eight teams in the Interior Conference and after struggling most of the season to an eighth-place finish, expectations are low that the Kings will be in the playoff hunt for very long.
They’re matched in Game 1 tonight in Penticton (7 p.m. start) against the two-time defending Fred Page Cup-champion Penticton Vees (38-10-3-3), who won the conference title with the league’s stingiest defence, allowing only 116 goals in a 54-game season, an average of 2.15 goals against.
The Spruce Kings went 1-5 head-to-head against Penticton this season, the lone win coming on home ice Jan. 5 when they took a 7-0 lead after two period and beat the Vees 7-4.
“I thought we played well in our rink against the Vees this year,” said Kings head coach Alex Evin. “I’m sure they didn’t love their game when we beat them but I thought the game the next night was tight. We didn’t come out on top (a 3-1 loss) but it was just a well-played game by both teams and we’re just hoping to do that down there and give ourselves a chance.”
The Vees have four NHL-drafted players and 21 college-committed players on a team that started the season with just two returnees.
Vees captain Callum Arnott was the only BCHL top-10 scorer on the Vees with 27 goals and 53 points. The Vees don’t have the firepower they did in the past two championships seasons but their offence still ranked fifth in the league.
Three of their NHL properties are forwards, including C Cade Littler (Calgary, seventh round, 2022), C Ryan MacPherson (Philadelphia, sixth round, 2023) and RW James Fisher (Columbus, seventh round, 2022). Littler is sidelined for the rest of the season after sustaining an upper-body injury in late February and Fisher is suspended for Game 1. But the Vees also have C Billy Renfrew (20-32-52), who averaged better than a point per game.
Larry Keenan (Detroit, fourth round, 2023) anchors the defence and put up 30 points this season, while Francesco Dell’Elce (9-29-38) also likes to get involved in the rush.
Goalie Will Ingemann led the league with a 1.85 GAA and six shutouts.
The Spruce Kings are led offensively by LW Kilian McGregor-Bennett, a Stonehill College recruit who had 20 goals and 38 points. C Owen Goodbrand (12-24-36) and Vanderhoof native RW Linden Makow (16-18-34) will be counted upon to fill the Penticton nets and stifle the Vees’ offence.
“This is an opportunity for us to show what we learned all year, everything we stuck with, and hopefully we’ll just show up as a team,” said McGregor-Bennett.
“Our d-zone has been the focus all year, that takes a lot of work and you’ve got to learn that throughout the year and recently we’ve been focusing on that and I think having those layers and that extra defensive mindset will just help us go further.”
Other Prince George forwards to watch are RW JR Perdion (14-14-28), Skogan Schrott (14-14-28), Alexi Cournoyer (11-15-26) and New Hampshire recruit Luca Primerano (9-13-22).
“We’ve got enough veterans that have been around our program awhile and we need them to play at the top of their game, which we haven’t always had this year,” said Evin. “It’s a new season and anything can happen. We’ll see if we can play a connected game. I think when we’re connected we’re OK, but when we get off the gameplan and get a little individual at times we’re definitely below average. Hopefully we get the connected team and we give ourselves a chance.”
Fifth-year defenceman Amran Bhabra has been with the Kings since 2019, arriving the season after Prince George won the Fred Page Cup. Counting the two playoff seasons lost to the pandemic, no team other than the Vees has won the BCHL title since then.
“I’ve been lucky enough to play some playoff games before so I’m happy I have the experience and we have a good group here, we know what we have to do and have that underdog mentality with nothing to lose and Penticton has everything to lose,” said Bhabra.
“We’re going to be coming in hot and we’ll really give them a shot. We didn’t reach our goals (in the season) but there’s nothing we can do now. All we do is look forward to the playoffs and we have right mentality for that now. We know what we have to do and we know it’s going to be hard. Every team can be beaten.
“They’re fast, they throw pucks around, we just have to stick to our systems and hit everything.”
The Kings’ have been injury-riddled all season and they won’t have the services of d-man Trent Ballantyne and forwards Aidan Corolan and Jared Langdon, all out with an upper-body issues. Princeton University-committed Kai Greaves was a BCHL all-star on defence this season. Ben LeFranc and Markus Yim, who both missed two-thirds of the season with injuries, will be also under the gun trying to stave off the Vees.
In goal, the Spruce Kings have rotated Charlie Zolin and Ryan Sanborn, but don’t be surprised if 17-year-old rookie homebrew Ryder Green gets a playoff start.
“There was point (late in the season) where we had a lead in seven of eight games and only came away with one win, we were having trouble closing the games in the end of the second or third period, characteristics of inexperience, immaturity, all that,” said Evin. “We haven’t come away with the results but we’re playing OK and we’ll see what happens.”
Games 3 and 4 will be played at Kopar Memorial Arena next Tuesday and Wednesday.
If they do force a Game 5, that would be played next Friday in Penticton.
