Royals look to get back on track at home

GAME DAY: TRI-CITY AT VICTORIA 7 p.m. at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre TV: None / Radio: The Zone 91.3 FM

A little too gracious in their last few Western Hockey League outings, the Victoria Royals aim to be a stingier side tonight when they face the Tri-City Americans in the first of two visits at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.

Surrendering nine goals in their last two road losses, Victoria (23-14-1-2) hopes to shore things up starting tonight at 7 against the Americans (16-20-2-0).

“We have to play better defensively, shut the opponents down and take it from there,” said interim head coach Enio Sacilotto, who will likely be running the bench both tonight and Wednesday as Dave Lowry hasn’t returned from the world junior championship.

Victoria allowed 80 shots on goal in a split in two games in Kamloops last week and cut that way down to 24 in Kelowna on Saturday, but did surrender five goals to the opportunistic Rockets in a 5-4 loss.

It was the second straight defeat, after a 3-2 win in Kamloops on Wednesday that was followed by a 4-1 loss on Friday.

“We have to make sure we’re energetic and firing on all cylinders. We’re at home now and we have to make the best of it while we’re here,” said Sacilotto. “We have to tighten up defensively, for sure, and that’s what we were working on.”

Royals captain Joe Hicketts may arrive late this afternoon from the world juniors, but is not expected to suit up.

After a two-day break from their schedule, the Royals begin a stretch of four games in five nights, starting with the two against Tri-City before travelling to Prince George on Thursday for Friday and Saturday games.

“We’ve played a lot of hockey, especially the last week, playing five games in seven days. The challenge is to keep the engine running,” said Sacilotto.

Goaltender Coleman Vollrath started all five of those games and is likely due to get a break in one of these two games against the Americans.

In fact, the 20-year-old Calgary native has appeared in more games (35) than any other WHL netminder and put in the secondhighest amount of minutes (1,931) behind Carter Hart of Everett, who leads the league with a 1.97 goalsagainst average. Vollrath is third in the GAA department at 2.52.

“I have seen a lot of pucks, but I like competing, I like battling and any time you see a lot of shots — I think this goes for any goalie — you get into a rhythm and you keep rolling through the entirety of the game,” said Vollrath, who has faced 922 shots against, sixth highest in the league.

He and his Royals teammates were reminded of the team’s strength by Sacilotto in their workout on Monday, stressing tighter positioning in their own zone.

Widely known as a defensive team, which has allowed the second lowest goals against in the WHL, the Royals have shown a few cracks of late.

“We have to be able to lock down our defensive zone game, not give up odd-man rushes and have a better neutral zone,” said Vollrath, who knows the importance of this stretch.

Despite losing two straight, they did benefit from a pair of Vancouver wins over Prince George on the weekend which has left the Royals in second place in the West, one point up on P.G., which does have one game in hand.

“We’re looking at getting as many points as we can and bear down in our division games,” added Vollrath of the tight conference.

“It’s very tight,” agreed Sacilotto. “We did get a break with Vancouver winning and we don’t want to be relying on other teams. We have to take care of business ourselves. If we can get a few points out of this series, it will tee up an interesting weekend [in Prince George].”