Kings sit in second after weekend

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

On a night where the arena had a moment of silence for those affected by the Ottawa tradgedy, the Wheatland Kings kept the fans in their seats until the shootout when they were defeated 3-2 by the Cochrane Generals on Oct. 25 at the Strathmore Family Centre.
Newly appointed captain Kirby Ruzesky was thrilled with the team’s energy right off the puck drop despite the Generals not giving them any room on the ice. “We knew coming into it, they were a good defensive team. I think they had the fewest amount of goals against in the league coming in.” said Ruzesky. “We talked about it in the room, just saying we had to use our speed. We got some of the more stronger skaters in the league and take pucks to the net, it was a tight game.”
The Kings noticeably tightened up defensively and had taken fewer penalties.
“For sure that’s one of the things we’ve been trying to work on in the first half of the season is our discipline. We didn’t come out so strong in the first and it hurt us,” said Ruzesky.
He thought goaltending and defensive zone coverage were their strengths in the game.
“Out goaltending was excellent and I thought we were a lot better in our own end. We beared down and got pucks out when we needed to,” said Ruzesky.
“We had lots of chances but couldn’t bury them.”
Coach Jeremy Blumes thought it was a tightly contested game for his team.
“I thought that game against Cochrane, we played with discipline and I thought for the most part we played pretty well,” said Blumes.
“I liked that we battled and competed to get the game tied up. When you go to a shootout, I thought us being a team leading the league in goals-for we would have an advantage there, but give their goalie some credit, he played really well and so did ours.”
The offense was in flight on Sunday afternoon in Ponoka as the Kings were victorious 7-1 over the Stampeders.
“I think we paid attention to the details in our zone and when you take care of the defensive zone first it translates into opportunities in the offensive zone
Goals in the win came from Graham Watkins, Sebastian Turgeon, Devon Westby, Chris Williams, Jarred Burnet, Lucas Jones and Blake Bishop.
The Kings will be back in action on Nov. 1 at (8 p.m.) versus High River at home and then in Okotoks the following day at 1:15 p.m.