Winless streak ends for Kings

Posted 2 months ago

Kirsten Mundy photo - Lucas Mikkelsen took control of the puck in the Okotoks Bisons zone Saturday night at the Family Centre. The efforts were without success though, as the Kings ended up behind on the scoreboard 6-2 at the end of the third.

Robert Massey

Standard Reporter

It's no longer a winless season for the Strathmore Wheatland Kings, who have now taken two games over the past few games.

The Kings won their first one on Halloween putting an end to their scary 0-8-0-1 record.

The victory came at the expense of the Mountainview Colts.

The game wasn't a blow out, with the Kings scrapping out a 2-1 win, but Doug Murphy and his team aren't exactly complaining.

"It was like getting a gorilla off our back," said the excited Kings' head coach.

"We finally got the type of defensive game we needed. Those little defensive lapses we've been having are under control."

The Kings' second victory of the season came against the High River Flyers in the form of a 6-0 blowout.

The Kings overwhelmed the Flyers, who sit third in the South Division with 15 points, and the teams new found offense.

This was the second game in a row where the Kings managed six goals. The other came as a 7-6 loss to the Medicine Hat Cubs.

"We've kept the same lines together for a number of games," Murphy said, "Before we were shuffling everyone around."

One reason the offence has started to click is the return of one of the Kings snipers from Junior A in B.C.

"Lucas is back and that's helped a great deal," the Kings coach said referring to Lucas Ford, who returned from the Quesnel Millionaires of the BCHL.

"He decided he wanted to come back and start having fun playing hockey again."

The return of Ford isn't the only reason the team has turned around, but Murphy said it helps to have one more sniper on the ice, especially when you have to send out your power play unit.

Before these victories the power play had stutter-stepped its way through the season, but now the team is coming together and the two power play units are stepping it up.

"The first line goes out and if they don't get it down we have a very good second unit," Murphy said.

"We have a pretty powerful power play. A lot of that comes from Ford and (Jeremy) Smith and (Mark) Goodman on defence."

Besides a power play that has started to click, Murphy attributes the turn around to a lack of selfish and lazy penalties as well as a powerful penalty kill.

"It's nice knowing that you have guys who can go out there and shut teams down," Murphy said.

"We've ragged on the guys a lot about not taking penalties, especially selfish penalties and guys have defiantly bought into not taking selfish penalties."

Following this weekend's games the Kings record sits at 2-11-0-1 and they now sit eight points behind the fourth place Medicine Hat Cubs and 23 points behind the first place Okotoks Bisons.

Down the road Murphy doesn't see anything changing, except maybe their totals in the wins and points columns.

"We have ground to close on the other teams but lots of time to do it. I think we're getting better game by game. And I think in the end we're going to be positioned right where we want to be."

Right where they want to be is in the playoffs, and to do that the Kings have their work cut out for them.

But it wouldn't be the first time in hockey history that a team came out from the bottom to make the playoffs.