Kings playing with confidence

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

The Wheatland Kings stretched their winning streak to three games after knocking off the top-ranked Mountainview Colts 3-2 on Dec. 11 in Didsbury.
According to Kings bench boss Emilio Fuoco, it was their most complete effort of the year so far.
“We followed the game plan almost to perfection,” said Fuoco. “It was a complete team effort. We didn’t allow them a lot of opportunities. All their shots were from the perimeter, very few in tight, five-on-five. We were able to control what they were able to do and dictate the play.”
Fuoco said their defensive zone play has improved immensely as guys are playing better positional play and not running around getting the puck.
“It’s a completely different group,” he said. “We have a legitimate Top 4 defense that’s outstanding, that potentially could be like Top 6 very strong defense. That’s really helped us.”
He mentioned earlier in the year they would lose confidence because they would get deflated easier if they were losing, but in cases like the game on Friday where the scoring went back and forth, it seemed the team would provide greater push back compared to previous games.
“We just had that confidence that just keep playing the way we asked them to play,” said Fuoco. “That’s solid in our zone, solid in the neutral zone and go have fun in the offensive zone. Mountainview is a really strong team in the sense that they’re physically strong. They really play the body and we didn’t shy away. You could tell they were trying to run us out of their own rink. We just kept to our guns and played our own way, and it paid off.”
Jayden Smith scored two goals while Lucas Jones scored in the win.
The Kings will play in Banff on Dec. 18 at 8 p.m., and they will play their last home game of 2015 against the Coaldale Copperheads on Dec. 19 at 8:15 p.m.