With Brar in uniform, Spruce Kings seeking first BCHL banner
Ben Brar’s offensive statistics are enough to make just about any B.C. Hockey League forward envious. Through 48 games the 19-year-old Prince George Spruce Kings left winger from Abbotsford has 22 goals and 22 assists for 44 points, almost a point-per-game pace, and ranks 20th in the league scoring race.
To say he’s enjoying the journey playing for the first-place Spruce Kings would be an understatement. Prince George is riding high in the Mainland Division, three points ahead of the Surrey Eagles and four ahead of the third-place Langley Rivermen with just one month left in the regular season.
Brar and his linemates, right winger Ethan de Jong and hardshooting centre Ben Poisson are playing well enough as a unit to draw interest from U.S. college and NHL team scouts who could hold the keys to the future beyond junior hockey for the Kings’ top line forwards.
While de Jong has locked up a scholarship for Quinnipiac University starting in 2019, the auditions continue for Brar and Poisson and just about everywhere they go in their BCHL travels they have scouts wanting to talk to them after the game. Brar signed a scholarship commitment with Denver University when he was 16 and still playing for Yale Academy but through mutual agreement that deal was scrubbed.
“There’s definitely some schools talking to me, which is nice, I’ve got a couple of good linemates and we work well together and we’ve put up some good numbers,” said Brar.
“Teams have to be aware of Ben and where he is on the ice all the time and that opens up some room for me and Ethan to make some plays. Ethan is having a great year, he’s getting good exposure and it’s a treat to play on a line with him. You try not to think about (the scouts), you just play your game and good things will happen if you play well. The longer we play the more looks we’ll get.”
The league doesn’t list plus/ minus figures in its online player statistics but if it did, Brar’s plus20 rating would probably put him in the BCHL’s upper echelon. With both teams playing at even strength Brar has been on the ice when his team scores a goal 20 more times than when the Kings have allowed a goal and he leads the Spruce Kings in that department. It’s no surprise his linemates, Poisson and de Jong, are not far behind with de Jong at plus-18 and Poisson at plus17, heading into tonight’s game at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena against the Chilliwack Chiefs.
Brar played 1 1/3 seasons with the Penticton Vees before he was traded to Prince George in November 2016 for futures considerations.
“He has such a high hockey IQ,” said Spruce Kings head coach Adam Maglio. “We see it probably more than others what he does out there that makes him valuable. Because of that, the points are coming for him.”
Now in his third BCHL season, Brar has also emerged as a deadly penalty-killer. The Spruce Kings are the least penalized team in the BCHL but they lead the league in scoring shorthanded goals with 12. Brar has two of them as well as two assists. Poisson has a teamleading three goals and three assists playing a man short, while de Jong has two goals and three assists on the PK.
“They don’t give defensively, so we’re pretty happy with them as a line, the three of them lead the team in plus/minus, they’re close to plus-60 collectively,” said Maglio. “Our forwards play a good 200-foot game and especially that line, they relish a team game. I think when schools are watching, how they play on the other side of the puck is certainly attractive to them.”
No Prince George team has ever held first place this late in a BCHL season, with 10 games left, and the Spruce Kings have it well within their reach to lock up their first BCHL banner if they can hang on to the division lead heading into the playoffs, which start the first weekend in March.
“It would be special to have a banner up here, it would probably hang forever so that would be nice,” said Brar. “We’re really defensively sound this season (third-stingiest in the league) but we’ve been kind of low-scoring. I think everyone’s going to pick it up here in stretch.”
The Coquitlam Express did the Spruce Kings a favour when they beat Surrey 6-0 in a rare Thursday afternoon game in Surrey. The Eagles have just nine games left.
The Kings (25-15-4-4) are coming off a 5-1 win Sunday afternoon in Chilliwack, after a 3-0 win the previous night in Coquitlam. Maglio said the Chilliwack game was one of the most complete road games he’s seen his team play this season. He’d like to see more of the same this weekend in the two-game set at home against the Chiefs (22-192-3, fourth in Mainland).
“We were pretty damn good in that (Chilliwack) game, that was probably one of our best games in a long time, it just flowed and we could get everyone involved,” said Maglio. “Everyone contributed. The referees just let them play.”
Game time tonight is at 7.
The Powell River Kings announced Tuesday they’ve fired Kent Lewis as head coach and general manager. Lewis had two stints with the team which covered 25 seasons, starting out as an assistant coach. Brock Sawyer has moved up from his assistant’s role to become the interim head coach. Kyle Bodie remains an assistant.
It would be special to have a banner up here, it would probably hang forever so that would be nice.
— Ben Brar
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