Kings secure playoff lead

By John Watson Local Journalism initiative Reporter

By the end of their first playoff game this season, the Wheatland Kings had clipped the wings of the High River Flyers, thrashing them on home ice with a 5-1 victory to kick off the series.

The Kings were ready to explode out of the gate and give the Flyers a fight for the full 60 minutes, something Head Coach Ron West has been working on with his team all season. 

Scoring the first goal of the night within the first six minutes of the first period, West was extremely pleased with his team’s performance. 

“It’s awesome … (we got) everything we asked for tonight out of them – phenomenal forecheck, great defense, solid in the neutral zone,” said West.

“You couldn’t ask for better … you knew it was coming. We just had some individual talks and I think getting their butts handed to us in Medicine Hat, it will help make them understand where we have to go.”

Shortly after their initial goal, the Kings were in for a four-minute penalty, but regardless of being a man short, they didn’t let up on the pressure. 

West is confident in the skills of his team, especially when it comes to killing any potential momentum that might be used against them during a penalty. Inversely, the Kings are never a team to miss the opportunity to punish their opponent when their own power play opportunity arrives.

“We actually are very good penalty kill team. I’ve got a good group of guys that know how to work hard on moving in, cycle it and get the puck down and they do it very well,” said West.

“My powerplay looked good. I didn’t think we would get to have much of it at the beginning after we got six minutes of penalties right away, but after that, we got our opportunities.”

The Kings will play the Flyers again on Feb. 11 on their ice – an arena where the Kings were defeated the last two times they played there in High River. 

West is confident his team will give him the exact performance there as they did on home ice and take the best-of-three series in a 2-0 set.

“We’re looking forward to it. We’ve lost to them twice, back-to-back on their turf, we will not lose to them again. We will finish it off on Friday.”

“I would like to have a break, Saturday and Sunday. I’d like them to just relax on Saturday and then watch the Superbowl on Sunday.”

If the Kings are defeated on Friday, they will return to Strathmore ice to finish the best-of-three series on Saturday, which will determine if they advance to the next round of playoffs.