Kings experience highs and lows in opening weekend

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

The Wheatland Kings sandwiched a pair of difficult losses with an impressive win over the defending champions to open the 2015-2016 hockey campaign.
The local junior-B team suffered a 4-1 on home ice on Sept. 26 before a hard-fought 6-5 win in Coaldale the following night. The Kings then fell 5-3 to the Banff Bears on Sept. 29 at the Strathmore Family Centre.
The Kings had hopes of sending the 400 fans home happy at their home opener on Saturday night but the Cochrane Generals came in and spoiled the party as they walked away with a 4-1 win.
The Kings were giving up chances through the night and failed to generate any offense. On top of it all, the penalties mounted high and the team was unable to recover.
“I think the discipline factor definitely factored into the outcome of tonight’s game,” said co-coach Joel Robinson. “We played a disciplined first two periods, which helped us gain momentum in our favour and when we did have the momentum in our favour we were getting pucks to the net, driving wide, putting pucks deep on their defensemen.
“Then we get into that problem of getting back into the box, let them take advantage of us on the power play and I think they scored three power play goals and if we skated with that team five-on-five, we can beat them any night.”
Robinson felt the players continued to get used to one another, but the game showcased some positives.
“We had some good things we saw tonight,” he said. “And there was some line combos we didn’t like. Pre-season, you work out kinks, but now you have your regular guys, you’re definitely trying to find some combos. I think (Cole) Busslinger (and Dylan) Smith played a great game for us in the bottom six tonight just by being a presence, playing the body, using the energy when they could.”
He added it was really nice to see secondary scoring and believes that first line scoring will come. The plan remains to keep some lines together and shuffle others around.
“I’m going to keep the horses together that are going,” said Robinson. “You look at (Chris) Williams, (Lucas) Jones and (Jacen) Bracko line, they were effective when they were in the offensive zone, so I’m going to keep that line together.”
Rookie forward Busslinger thought the team played well considering it was their first time together in a game situation.
“In the next few games we’ll all get used to each other’s habits, strengths and weaknesses,” said Busslinger. “We’ll move forward from there I guess. We really struggled in the defensive zone, but that all just comes with time because none of us played together before.”
Smith scored the lone goal in the loss.
Kings manager Dale Peters thought the team took awhile to get their legs under them on Sunday night in Coaldale, but once they found them, the offense started coming and the Kings edged the defending champions 6-5.
“I think it took us the first period to get our legs together and get our mind focused on hockey,” said Peters. “Once we got going, we got some pretty good goaltending in the first period to save our butts. We played very well in the second period. In third period we played great until about the last five minutes where they got a couple of quick ones on us and we steadied down … (Ryan) Grasdahl and (Blake) Bishop helped us out.”
He added for the second game of the season the offense was well rounded with four lines moving the puck well and pressured well in the offensive zone.
Smith, Busslinger, Bracko, Bishop, Jones, and Tyler Rivest scored in the win.
The Kings played three games in four nights, and were back home on Tuesday night to play host to the Banff Academy Bears. Both teams played an evenly-matched game until the last three minutes of the third.
The Kings were penalized and the Bears were able to capitalize on the power play and scored on an empty netter to win 5-3.
“The penalty with three minutes to go hurt us,” said Peters. “I think we got caught on a lot of 3-on- 2’s and we got pressing in their end zone and when that happens, you get back in to your end zone, you don’t have any necessary outlet to come out if you have no players back. That was a big part of the game and I think we’ll get better.”
The Kings will play three games in three nights this weekend starting in High River on Oct. 2 (8:15 p.m.), at home versus Ponoka on Oct. 3 (8 p.m.) and in Blackfalds the following day at 3:30 p.m.