Kings have tough weekend

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

The Wheatland Kings appeared to have put their early season undisciplined play behind them, but it crept back in this past weekend.
They dropped a 6-2 to decision to the Red Deer Vipers on Saturday night on the road and then a 5-2 loss to the Three Hills Thrashers on Sunday afternoon on home ice.
“I think our road game in Red Deer, we were beat by a team that competed harder for loose pucks, (they) had more desire and we lost a special teams battle,” said head coach Jeremy Blumes.
Brady Bruneau and Brayden Beckley scored in the Red Deer loss.
“Then (on Sunday), it was a conscious decision that team frustration carried over and we didn’t do a very good job of maintaining discipline and again weren’t very good on special teams.”
Blumes said that in the game against Three Hills, it felt as if the Kings had a target on their backs from the officiating.
“There were times crossing the blue line one of our players received a cross check to his throat and it went unnoticed. Then everything after the whistle, there were two teams engaged, it seemed like only one team was making the trip to the penalty box,” said Blumes.
The frustration from the coach’s perspective is that undisciplined penalties was thought to be a thing of the past, but for some reason affected the teams play.
“I felt like we had got past this hump. It’s hard to get into any sort of rhythm when half of each period there’s guys that play in those (penalty killing) situations and guys that aren’t,” said Blumes.
Goal scorers were Kirby Ruzesky and Andrew McCann against the Thrashers.
It was not all bad this weekend, as there were a couple of players that stood out and gave it honest effort.
“I thought a guy like Calvin Gordon, who was scratched last week against Ponoka, stepped back into the line up with a lot of energy and more purpose around the puck and competed harder,” said Blumes. “Ryan Grasdahl played forward and defense, he demonstrated he’s willing to put the team first and we just need more guys to take the cue from him.”
The Kings will now travel to Airdrie on Dec. 12 (8 p.m.) before hosting the Cochrane Generals the following day at (8:15 p.m.) at the Strathmore Family Centre.