Express pick up rare victory against Spruce Kings

They were looking up from the bottom rung of the standings against a team they hadn’t beaten in more than two years but the Coquitlam Express finally found a way to derail the first-place Prince George Spruce Kings.

Playing at home Saturday, the Express handed Spruce Kings their second loss of the weekend, a 3-1 triumph, Coquitlam’s first win over Prince George since Feb. 14, 2016.

Joshua Wildauer, Haydn Delorme and Christian Sanda, with an empty-netter, scored for Coquitlam. Brock Hamm made 26 saves for his 10th BCHL win of the season.

The Express moved into a two-goal lead early in the second period when Colby Pederson chipped the puck off the boards to get a stride ahead of defenceman Dylan Anhorn and Pederson spotted Delorme breaking for the net and fed him the puck for the gamewinner.

Kyle Johnson scored 14:08 into the third period to prevent Hamm from notching his second shutout of the season.

Bradley Cooper stopped 22 of 24 shots in net for Prince George.

The Spruce Kings won the first seven games of the season series with Express.

The Kings, who lost 5-3 Friday in Surrey, still managed to ac- complish one of their season goals when they clinched first place in the Mainland Division. That became a certainty Friday in Merritt where the Chilliwack Chiefs lost 5-2 and they were unable to run the table and win all their remaining games in a bid to bypass the Kings.

Prince George will close out the season next weekend with two games in Chilliwack and a Sunday afternoon game in Langley.

The Kings will host the opening two games of their best-of-seven Mainland semifinal series, March 2 and 3 at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena against the fourth-place finisher.