Powell River, BC – The Powell River Kings (20-21-2) began their three-in-three weekend with a 4-1 loss to the Wenatchee Wild (21-17-4) in front of a crowd of 805 on Friday night at the Hap Parker Arena.
The Wild scored twice in the final three minutes of the first period, and once early in the second for a 3-0 after 40 minutes of play. Brett Chorske ripped his 14th of the season over the glove of Derek Krall, Nicholas Chmelevski scored on a rebound after a Quinn Emerson warp around was stopped, and Matt Dorsey finished off a tic-tac-toe.
At the halfway point of the third period, Jacob Slipec took a Levi Glasman centering pass and roofed the puck past Daniel Chenard to bring the Kings within two. Seconds later, Devin Leduc took a five minute penalty for checking from behind and the Wild capitalized on their first and only man-advantage. Sam Morton extended his point-streak to nine games, as he popped his wrist-shot into the top right corner, extending the Wenatchee lead to 4-1.
“By then it was too little too late,” said Kings assistant coach Brock Sawyer. “You can’t just turn it on and turn it off. We did some good things in the third period (outshot them 13-7), but where were we in the first two? We played hard for maybe five minutes, and got a goal, but other than that we didn’t bare down to find the back of the net, and our defending was atrocious.”
The Kings fall to 2-3 since the break, and drop their second straight home contest. The Wild, improve to 2-1 since the break, and 5-2 over their last seven games. The Kings also fall to 11-8 on home ice this season, and to 4-9 against the Interior Division.
Sawyer later added that you need to be ready to play a full 60 minutes in order to have success in the BCHL.
“Teams are too good, and you have to be ready to play, and you can’t take a night off. You have to be dialed in all game long and ready to produce. It’s frustrating as I think we had a lot of chances where we could have escalated the score, but we didn’t put our nose down and go hard to the net.”
Kings goaltender Derek Krall stopped 30 of 34 in the hockey game, while Wild goaltender gave up one goal on 27 shots for his 14th win this season.
The Kings continue their jam-packed weekend on Saturday, January 11th at the Q Center against the Victoria Grizzlies, and on Sunday afternoon in Duncan against the Cowichan Valley Capitals. The Kings will begin a six game homestand on January 17th against the Nanaimo Clippers.
