Kings heavily penalized against Red Deer Vipers

By Tyler Lowey, Times Reporter

The former Heritage Junior Hockey League leaders in the penalty kill put their defenders into overdrive Nov. 18 in Red Deer.
The Kings entered that game against the Vipers boasting the best penalty kill unit in the league. But at the end of the day, when a team spends over half the game in the sin bin, it doesn’t matter how good of a unit you have, it will catch up to you.
And that’s precisely what happened Nov. 18 at the Collicut Arena, when the Kings were short-handed 15 times, racking up a total of 130 penalty minutes and a 7-0 shellacking in the process.
“We clearly lost our focus,” said Kings alternate captain Brenden Moore. “We started taking bad penalties which only led to more penalties, and we’ve already learned this season that giving up penalties leads to goals and it did once again in Red Deer.”
Leading the way was an obvious candidate, Matt Thomson, with 23 minutes, to give him 126 on the season and 788 in his illustrious 101-game HJHL career – the equivalent of 13 hours and eight minutes of infractions and majors.
Surprisingly, rookie Jake Johnston was only a harmless minor away from tying Thomson, as he finished with 21 minutes in the box. Through his first four games with the Kings, he only had a pair of minors on his rap sheet.
The Kings (9-6-1) were doing pretty good on the penalty kill and kept their percentage intact until the third period, when the dam burst open for three goals.
Connor Sullivan assisted on a pair of power play goals to Cooper Willms and Curtis Hallman, as Mack Differenz registered an unassisted power play goal 13 seconds into the third.
The last time the Kings hooked up with the Vipers, the Kings pulled off one of their more impressive wins on the season, clipping the snakes 3-2 Oct. 1 at the Strathmore Family Centre.
The second place Vipers (11-4-1) capitalized in the rematch, sneaking two past Cole Bright in the first and second period, as the Creston, B.C. product allowed six goals on 36 shots and was replaced by Kelly with 10 minutes to go in the third. Indiana Kelly was better in his second outing of the weekend, stopping 12 of 13 shots.
The Kings were doing a fantastic job with their discipline this season. Last year, the Kings were the seventh-most short-handed team, surrendering 205 power plays. Entering the Viper game, the Kings had only been short-handed 75 times, well below the league average of 85 short-handed opportunities with the midway point of the season around the bend.
During their six-game winning streak, the Kings were averaging 3.83 power play opportunities for the opposition. The total number during that stretch was nearly matched in one game.
The Kings were much more disciplined to open up the brief two-game gauntlet of a road trip against the top teams from the Northern division.
The roady started at the Ron Ebbesen Arena in Airdrie, as the Kings were doubled up by the top-ranked Techmation Thunder 4-2, snapping their win streak.
It would have been a difficult task for any team, having to travel to some of the toughest rinks in the Heritage Junior Hockey League on back-to-back nights and walk away unscathed.
“We were with Airdrie for the whole game, we just didn’t play a complete 60 minutes,” said Moore. “There was probably 10 or 15 minutes where we weren’t all there and they capitalized.”
The Thunder (11-5-2) blitzed the Kings and led 4-0 into the second period, as the HJHL’s No. 2 ranked scorer Clay Murray opened the scoring on the power play. Rylan Plante-Crough netted an even strength and short-handed marker, with Jacob MacDonald supplying the insurance marker.
Indiana Kelly was lifted from his duties between the pipes following the MacDonald snipe. He only made 11 saves on 15 shots. Backup netminder Cole Bright was inserted, stopping all 25 shots in 36:50 minutes of action.
Calgary product Jaks Fairs buried his seventh of the season at the 3:10 mark, unassisted, and Kody Hammond scored on the power play at the 16:19 mark from Mitchell Broughton.
“Aside from all the penalties, the main things from the weekend we took away were that we needed to win more puck battles,” said Moore. “Whether it’s in the corner or helping out our centre off the draw, we need to win the small puck battles to control the play.”
The weekend set saw an end to the Kings goal-scoring burst. During the six-game heater, the Kings smothered teams, averaging 6.66 goals per game.
The Kings will look to shake the penalty trouble and rekindle their goal-scoring touch Nov. 25 when they travel to the Didsbury Recreation Centre to tangle with the Mountainview Colts (8-6-3). Returning home the following day, the Kings will host the 9-7-3 High River Flyers (5 p.m.), who sit two points ahead of Kings in the Southern Division at the Family Centre.
The Kings are 1-0 against the Flyers this season, beating them 8-3 back on Nov. 3 at the Bob Snodgrass Recreation Complex.