Oil Kings fuelled by early offensive outburst
‘Natural chemistry’ credited for boost
The Edmonton Oil Kings were expected to have issues scoring this season.
Yet, heading into their game against the Brandon Wheat Kings Friday (7 p.m.) at Rogers Place, the Oil Kings are among the top scoring teams in the Western Hockey League’s Central Division with 18 goals in their first five games.
Considering the Oil Kings are still in the midst of a rebuild and do not have an established offensive star on their squad, the strong offensive output thus far could be considered surprising.
“We’ve needed more offence, so we’ve spent a lot of time on that and we hoped to develop a lot more internal offence,” said Oil Kings head coach Steve Hamilton. “But ultimately, the area that needs to come down considerably is goals against. You can’t get yourself into too many track meets and use that as a strategy.”
The Oil Kings are 2-3 on the year and have conceded 25 goals so far this season. They gave up seven in an opening-night loss on the road to the Red Deer Rebels and six in a wild 7-6 victory against the Lethbridge Hurricanes in the first of three games in three nights last weekend.
The Oil Kings ended up winning two of those three games after a gritty 4-3 win Sunday at the Kootenay Ice.
“It was three-in-three in 48 hours, essentially, and I thought our guys responded well,” Hamilton said. “We got off to an early lead, gave a couple back and then had maybe our best period of the year in that second period where we tilted the ice considerably in our favour."
Scoring by committee has so far worked out for the Oil Kings.
Forward Trey Fix-Wolansky leads the team in scoring with three goals and seven points, while Davis Koch has six points and Colton Kehler, Kobe Mohr and Will Warm each have five.
“I think if you look at our team, there are lots of contributors and that’s something that we felt we were going to need,” Hamilton said. “It’s great to see Trey and Davis amongst the (league) leaders, but it it’s nice to see some other faces there and I think that speaks to the confidence and growth and development of some of those players that a year ago were maybe a touch out of their depth in terms of being ready to be offensive contributors.
“Now you can see there is a more natural chemistry with one another and a more natural progression in their game.”
The Oil Kings added to their offence Monday by trading for 20-year-old European forward Tomas Soustal, who had 18 goals and 47 points in 49 games for the Kelowna Rockets last season.
Along with helping the Oil Kings offensively, Soustal should also aid the club with its defensive structure, which with a young defensive corps has been somewhat of an issue so far this year.
“We need to be a little bit more responsible,” Hamilton said. “A couple of games skewed that offensive number pretty substantially when you’re scoring seven in a game, but we certainly feel like our offence is definitely taking a step forward. There are teams in this league that can flat-out score and I don’t think we want to be in a position where we have to trade chances with them all night.”
Following their win against the Ice, the Oil Kings have had almost an entire week to prepare for the Wheat Kings. They will then host the Everett Silvertips Sunday.
“We had the guys come in Tuesday, it was a short practice and then we have (Wednesday) and (Thursday) to look at our team game,” Hamilton said.