‘We’re confident we can win down there’
Kings off to invade home of the Wild
The seed of doubt has been cast. Tuesday’s 4-2 loss to the Prince George Spruce Kings in Game 4 of the BCHL Fred Page Cup championship proved the Wenatchee Wild can be beaten.
Now it’s up to the Spruce Kings to show they can find that winning formula three more times. They dug themselves a deep hole when they lost the first three games of the series, but after an inspiring Game 4 triumph in front of their home fans Tuesday, the Kings are clinging to the hope they will complete a miraculous comeback.
They’ll need a small miracle to win in Wenatchee tonight (7:05 start). The Wild have been unbeatable on home ice in the playoffs, a perfect 10-0, and one more win is all the boys from Washington state need to get their mitts on the trophy. They’ve got a chance to become the first American-based champions of the B.C. Hockey League since the Bellingham Blazers did it in 1979.
“It’s just simple, we’ve just got to stick to our process and take care of business at home,” said Wild captain Jasper Weatherby, who had his point streak snapped at 12 games Tuesday and continues to lead the BCHL playoff scoring race with 15 goals and 36 points in 19 games. “I give big credit to our fans – they’re unbelievable and we really feed off their energy and we’ve just had some good puck luck down there, working hard for our fans and for the team.
“If we prepare the right way and play hard, it’ll go our way.”
The Spruce Kings scored goahead goals late in the first and second periods and hung on to their lead the rest of the game Tuesday. The Wild were reminded how difficult it is to lock down that fourth win in a series and send the other team packing for the summer.
“Give credit to P.G.,” Weatherby said. “They came out hard (Tuesday night) and in our room we just have to understand that eliminating the other team isn’t easy, so we’ve got to take it upon ourselves to get the job done.”
Weatherby, who turned 20 on Jan. 22, joined the Wild last season after two years in the Omaha Lancers minor hockey program. The Ashland, Ore., native led the BCHL in regular-season scoring with 74 points and was voted the league’s MVP. He’d obviously like a shot at the RBC Cup national championship with the Wild before he heads to North Dakota on a college scholarship next season.
“I love playing in this league, all the fans throughout the league are so enthusiastic and it’s been an awesome ride and nothing would be better than to finish off with a championship,” said Weatherby.
The Spruce Kings got a huge spiritual lift Tuesday when centre Ben Poisson took his first shift in more than two months, returning from a ruptured spleen he suffered in a game Feb. 9. The 18-year-old Poisson had 22 goals and was producing at nearly a point-pergame pace when he got hurt in a fall into the boards chasing a loose puck. He showed what the Kings have been missing when he came within an Austin Park stick-paddle save from scoring five seconds into his first shift in Game 4.
“He means everything to this team,” said Kings defenceman Jay Keranen. “He’s a great person, which is the most important thing, and to have him on the ice I think it pushed all the guys to be their best. We have a lot of depth and when guys go out (with injuries) other guys step up and that’s why we’ve been winning.”
Poison had been skating for two weeks and practiced with the Kings all last week. His flight from Vancouver arrived just before the game and he was just about to step into the Kings’ dressing room at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena when Spruce Kings captain Kyle Johnson scored their first goal on a power play four minutes into the game.
“That was a huge boost just to see him, especially coming out on the first shift and almost scoring. He’s a big body and he scares the guys out there and that was huge, he definitely wore down their D and hopefully he continues to play like that in the next game,” said Kings winger Ethan de Jong. “He was gone for like 29 games and coming back in the playoff finals like that is tough. It’s much faster than the regular season but he did a great job. He’s a leader for us, he wears that ‘A’ for a reason and he’s a great guy in the room.”
De Jong scored two goals in Game 4 to improve his stake on second place in the playoff scoring race with 13 goals and 27 points in 23 games, second only to Weatherby. The 18-year-old from North Vancouver says the Kings have played well enough in the series to be tied with the Wild and he’s convinced they have what it will take to win it.
“We’ve got the momentum from this game so hopefully we’ll keep that going in their barn,” said de Jong. “We just have to be physical, especially on their D. A guy like Cooper Zech is very talented and hard to hit but once we do start hitting them they sort of back off and play a bit more passive and if we keep doing that we’ll have some success. We have to limit our turnovers and keep getting pucks deep.”
Having a hot goalie is crucial in the playoffs and Evan DeBrouwer has been that guy for the Kings, sporting a 2.13 goals-against average, .925 save percentage and two shutouts in the playoffs.
“The guy is phenomenal – it’s unbelievable. It’s not normal for a goalie in every single game to be making crazy saves like that and it’s unreal to play in front of him,” said Keranen.
The Wild won the first two games in Wenatchee, 4-0 and 4-2, then took Game 3 with a 4-3 double-overtime victory. On Tuesday, after the Wild scored consecutive goals in the second period to erase a 2-0 deficit, it looked like visitors were going to run away with it. Wenatchee owned the puck in the second half of the period but couldn’t score. All it took was a turnover in the final minute of the period to shift the momentum. Wild goalie Park tried to clear the zone and Ben Brar intercepted and fed a pass to de Jong, who jammed in the eventual game-winner from the side of the net 29 seconds before the intermission.
“I thought the second period was probably the best out of the eight that we played (in Prince George),” said Wild head coach and general manager Bliss Littler. “We had our chances and then just a bad decision at the end. The puck was bouncing and it ended up in the back of our net and I thought that gave them a little bit of life. It kills you to get scored on in the last 30 seconds and they got two of them and that was the difference.
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We’ve got the momentum from this game so hopefully we’ll keep that going in their barn.
— Ethan de Jong
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“We’ll go back where there’s a little more room to operate (at Town Toyota Center) and I’m sure it will be a different style of game. We’ve been pretty good at home for a few years. If you would have told me at the start of the series that we’d go into our building for Game 5 with a 3-1 lead, I would have said, with as good as this (Kings) team is, we’ll take it.”
Special teams were a factor in Game 4. The Spruce Kings scored on two of their three power-play chances and didn’t have to play shorthanded at all in the game.
“Our game-plan is to stay disciplined and we’re getting rewarded for that – it carried over from the regular season and that’s important because Wenatchee’s special teams is a big reason why they are where they are right now,” said Kings head coach Adam Maglio.
“We’re confident we can win down there. You do have to have a high level of execution in their rink, they really play well there and feed off the crowd and they score in bunches. If they get one they’re usually on the gas to get another one.”
A win tonight for the Kings will mean Game 6 will be played Saturday night at RMCA. If they can push the Wild to the limit, Game 7 is set for Wenatchee on Monday. The Wild would obviously like to wrap up the series tonight and avoid another 13-hour trip to Prince George. That would give Wenatchee a full week to prepare for the next step in the championship ladder, the best-of-seven Doyle Cup against the Alberta Junior Hockey League champions, which starts April 27 in the victorious BCHL team’s rink.