Offence comes in bunches for Kings

 

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

An offensive outburst in High River had the Wheatland Kings on an ultimate high with an 8-5 thrashing over the Flyers on Oct. 17. Then on Saturday night, against Coaldale at home, there seemed to be a lack of identity and unnecessary penalties being taken in a 5-3 loss.
This has left head coach Jeremy Blumes and his staff still looking for consistency in his team’s performances and the amount of time spent in the box.
“We’ve been scoring goals on a fairly consistent basis. When we play with speed, teams have a tough time keeping up with us,” said Blumes. “The game was good in the sense that we got contribution from all four lines.”
Penalties continued to be an issue that has plagued the team the past few games and it will be something that needs to be addressed if the Kings are to be successful the rest of the season.
“We don’t have the time to make incremental improvements in terms of discipline. We’re either disciplined or not,” said Blumes.
The High River game was a positive step in that they know they can score goals and there were some players that put in a full effort.
“Keenan Ogle, not because he had the hat trick, but because he skated hard, played with pace, finished every check. Devon Westby played his first game of the regular season and he’s a guy that’s played at a high level and he has that leadership quality that is certainly going to add to our dressing room,” said Blumes.
Goal scorers were Ogle with three, Brayden Beckley with two, while Kirby Ruzesky, Chris Williams and Brett Dumaine each added one.
The next night against Coaldale, the Kings gave the Copperheads too much time and space where they capitalized.
“I think you got to give the other team credit. I think they’ve got a good top line and are opportunistic … a little bit of time and space, they’re going to find the back of the net and we gave them too much time and space,” said Blumes.
Special teams can determine the outcome of a game and the Kings started to show glimpses of how effective their power play can be.
“I mean you want to have an effective power play with the way the game is called, special teams is going to make a big difference. It was nice to have Ryan Grasdahl score a goal because he is consistently one of our hardest-working and most disciplined players,” said Blumes.
Ruzesky, Grasdahl and Westby scored in the loss.
Kings defensemen Justin Zeiler agrees that if the team can use their speed, they will see more results.
“The positives that we can take out is we use our speed, crash the net, fore check and creating turnovers, no team can catch us. Then we start letting off that’s where it comes down to (us) trailing a game,” said Zeiler.
He admits that the team as a whole needs to stay disciplined and not play as individuals.
“We just got to be better disciplined as a team and play together as one,” said Zeiler.