Royals drill down for playoff opener tonight
GAME DAY: KAMLOOPS AT VICTORIA, GAME 1 7 p.m. at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre TV: None / Radio: The Zone 91.3 FM
The Victoria Royals have been steady but not spectacular when it comes to the playoffs.
The Royals are one of only three clubs in the 22-team Western Hockey League — along with Everett and Portland — to have made the post-season every year of the eight seasons the team has played on the Island.
The Royals, however, have never made it past the second round.
The 2019 playoff saga for the Victoria club begins unfolding tonight and Saturday when it hosts the Kamloops Blazers in the first two games of their best-ofseven opening-round series. The third and fourth games are Tuesday and Wednesday at the Sandman Centre in Kamloops.
Although the Kelowna Rockets and Vancouver Giants have probably become Victoria’s greatest rivals, a longer-term perspective shows that Victoria and Kamloops met in the first round in each of the first two seasons the Royals played on the Island, with the Blazers winning both series. So there is a history there, although it’s probably of the ancient variety to the current group of players on either club.
This series comes with a kind of sporting chicken-and-egg conundrum. Is it better to be fresher, like Victoria, after having clinched with six games remaining and then gliding into the postseason under little stretch-drive pressure? Or is it better to come in, like Kamloops, having already faced the crucible of playoff-like pressure? The Blazers played 69 games this season and every one was essentially a playoff game, including Tuesday’s 5-1 play-in game victory against Kelowna after both clubs tied for third place in the B.C. Division at 28-32-8 behind division second-place Victoria (34-30-4).
Left as North Thompson roadkill, the Blazers picked up 11 of a possible 12 points in their last six regular-season games, before the play-in win, in a furious rally that was as breathless as it was unlikely. And they did it riding the crease play of 16-year-old rookie goaltender Dylan Garand, the Juan de Fuca prodigy who stepped up with 20-year-old Las Vegas Golden Knights-prospect Dylan Ferguson of Lantzville out with injury during the stretch drive. Garand simply outplayed 2019 NHL draft-projected Roman Basran of Kelowna in the play-in game.
So, don’t talk to the Blazers about playoffs. They have essentially been in them the past three weeks.
“Both teams have their perspective on that [freshness versus battle hardiness] and there is an advantage to both points of view,” said Royals head coach Dan Price.
“We have managed rest and recovery well this season and feel we are peaking in terms of energy. And we feel we’re also battle-tested with the game density we faced the last couple of months.”
That allowed for a relatively early playoff-clinching date and a largely meaningless stretch drive, which might now prove key, as Price was able to rest several healthy players while giving injured players time to heal. Among the latter, forward Kody McDonald and blue-liners Matthew Smith and Jameson Murray are expected back in the lineup tonight for the start of the playoffs. That leaves leadingscorer Kaid Oliver’s upper-body situation as the most glaring Victoria injury heading into the playoffs. The league stops issuing injury reports in the playoffs and the Royals will not divulge postseason information regarding player health, but it is believed Oliver will miss a good portion of the first-round series, if not all of it.
“We are more disappointed for Kaid than we are about anything else, because we know we have guys who can step up and fill roles,” said Price.
“We have great depth and versatility.”
Injury woes to crucial players have dogged the Royals in past playoff years.
“Every year I’ve been here, it seems there have been injuries for us to deal with in the playoffs,” said veteran 20-year-old Victoria goaltender Griffen Outhouse.
It goes with the territory, added Price.
“Every team goes through it,” he said. “There is not a player who is 100 per cent [healthy] this time of year.”
The series pits two teams not accorded much attention by pundits at the beginning of the season.
“We were not given the recognition or respect in training camp and nobody projected us to finish where we did,” said Price.
“We took that personally. We remained humble and worked hard to prove people wrong.”
Victoria won the season series against Kamloops 5-3-1. But the Blazers won the last meeting 8-0, although it should be mentioned the short-staffed Royals had already clinched a playoff berth and home-ice advantage while Kamloops was in desperation mode.
WHL NOTES: The Winnipeg (formerly Kootenay) Ice will select first in the 2019 WHL bantam draft on May 2 in Red Deer. The Ice won the draft lottery this week held among the six non-playoff teams — Winnipeg, Swift Current, Regina, Prince George, Kelowna and Brandon.
Victoria traded its first-round pick, which would have been 10th overall, to Brandon. The Royals, however, do have a first-round selection. Because of a trade, Victoria has Saskatoon’s 19th overall pick in the first round.