It’s an awfully long road to Trail.
Of all the teams in the B.C. Hockey League, nobody has further to go than the Prince George Spruce Kings. They’ve got 12 hours and nearly 1,000 kilometres of highway travel ahead of them before they reach their West Kootenay destination to play the Smoke Eaters on Wednesday.
That will give them plenty of time to think up ways to defuse one of the hottest teams in the league. The Smokies (30-14-2-2-1) have won nine of their last 11 games dating back to Dec. 18 and only one of those losses was in regulation time.
Last week the Kings started a three-game roadtrip with a come-from-behind 4-3 win over the league-leading Coquitlam Express but were unable to keep up the pace to close out the weekend, losing 3-0 in Surrey and 6-5 in Chilliwack.
“We were alright in Coquitlam and got better as the game went on,” said Kings head coach Alex Evin. “We didn’t have the greatest start but we stuck with it and got good goaltending from Woody (Carter Woodside) and made some nice plays on the goals we scored. I loved our compete and energy for that game and we were rewarded for it.
“In Surrey we were outshooting them 30-15 after two and were down 2-0. They had a good performance from their goaltender (Reece Klassen) and in that game we didn’t get better in the game. Our worst period was the third period when we kind of needed a bit of a push. We played well enough win but missed on some details.
“In Chilliwack, credit to our guys, we stuck with it and almost tied it up there. We just didn’t have enough guys going. The fourth line took three undisciplined penalties and I thought our back end really struggled. A positive was we pushed the whole way, which is a big thing for us considering where we were at a few months ago. Obviously we have to play a lot better defensively to win on the road.”
Forwards Nick Poisson and Fin Williams have been on a roll lately and Evin said they were his team’s most consistent players in the Chilliwack game. In the last five games Poisson collected four goals and four assists, while Williams, a 16-year-old rookie centre, had three goals and two assists over that same stretch.
Goalie Carter Woodside has drawn the past four starts in net and won two of those games. Woodside, who turned 19 on Jan. 4, has a 4-6-0-0-0 record in 13 games since he joined the Kings from the junior B Princeton Posse and has a 3.24 goals-against average and .895 save percentage.
For now, Woodside has shunted Jett Alexander, 20, into the backup’s role. Alexander (12-18-0-0, 3.08 GAA, .896 save percentage) hasn’t played since Jan. 15, when he was yanked to the bench midway through a 6-3 loss in Salmon Arm.
“I’m going to play whoever gives us a chance consistently,” said Evin. “Carter has played well. I’m not sure what we’re going to do on this coming roadtrip but the team’s playing well in front of him and he’s giving us a chance. He got a big win in Coquitlam and played really well at home in that Langley win and I didn’t think he was bad at all in the Surrey game and in Chilliwack he kept us in it. I like how he’s going, he’s not letting in a lot of bad goals.”
The Spruce Kings (16-26-2-3-0) have just five wins in their last 11 and continue to rank last in the Mainland Division, seven points back of the fourth-place Langley Rivermen.
If the playoffs started today the Kings would get in as one of the crossover teams and would play either the third-place or fourth-place team in the Interior Division. Sixteen of the league’s 17 team make the playoffs. The Spruce Kings and Victoria Grizzlies (fifth in the Island Division) each have 37 points, 13 ahead of the last-overall Merritt Centennials heading into the last month of the season.
“I don’t honestly follow the standings too much, I know where we’re at and we just want to finish as high as we can and be playing good hockey and hopefully that’s in a playoff spot,” said Evin. “You want to get playing well at the right time and I think we’re close. We’re playing a lot harder than we were a couple months ago. We just have to be more consistent in how we manage the game.”
Kings captain Nolan Welsh hurt his shoulder in the Coquitlam game and has missed the last two games, but there’s a chance he might play Wednesday. The 20-year-old Welsh, in his fourth BCHL season, has been a steady asset for the Kings. With 13 goals and 34 points the 20-year-old Whistler native has averaged nearly a point per game and is one of the go-to guys on special teams. He had been playing the right wing on a line with Preston Brodziak and Corey Cunningham.
Defenceman Brendan Hill, a Lake Superior State recruit for 2020-21, is close to being ready after missing four games with a knee injury. Like Welsh, he’s listed as day-to-day and might play in Trail or in Vernon, where the Kings play the Vipers in Friday.
LOOSE PUCKS: The trip to Trail is a homecoming for Evin, who grew up half an hour away in Castlegar, and Kings rookie defenceman Amran Bhabra, is a native of nearby Nelson. Both expect to have family and friends in the stands Wednesday at Cominco Arena… Cariboo Cougar captain John Herington has committed to the Spruce Kings for next year. The 17-year-old native of Hudson's Hope has 12 goals and 12 assists in 29 games playing major midget hockey for the Cariboo Cougars. He’s played seven games this season for the Kings.
