It wasn’t the perfect start that Powell River Kings were looking for when they split the first two games of a best-of-seven series against Victoria Grizzlies at Hap Parker Arena.
In fact the Kings had nothing else to celebrate until 11:11 in overtime of game five in Powell River when they finally caught a break to win 3-2.
The two losses in Victoria, a 2-1 overtime loss in the first game and 5-2 decision in the second one, were tough pills to swallow for a number of reasons.
Kings were road warriors this year with the league’s best record at 21-5-3-1. Their road penalty-killing record was tops and they hadn’t lost back to back games once during the regular schedule.
Having said that, throw it all out the window because the playoffs are a whole new season and nobody, especially your opponent, cares about your record.
Kings were looking pretty good in game three on Friday when Andrew Pettitt scored the only goal of the first period on the powerplay.
About 150 noisy Kings’ fans cheered until the Grizzlies tied the game at 13:08 of the third period to force overtime.
It looked very good for the Kings when Matt Garbowsky took the opening faceoff and with a burst of speed broke in alone on the Grizzly net.
Just as the top goal scorer in the league was about to make his deke the puck hit a puddle left from the zamboni and it stopped.
Kings continued to press and a couple of minutes later Cohen Adair had an open net to decide the game but didn’t get all of the puck and it fluttered over the bar.
On the shift Victoria cleared the puck into the Kings’ end and Michael Garteig went behind his net to stop it. But the puck hit a glass divider and popped right into the slot where Dustin Johnson buried the winner.
Shocked and dismayed Kings started strong Saturday but squandered a five-minute powerplay awarded after Justin Bardarson was knocked unconscious in the first period.
Special teams play, normally a strong suit for Powell River, was dismal as Victoria scored four times on seven chances and cruised to a relatively easy 5-2 win and 3-1 lead in the series.
“If you’re working hard you get the bounces,” said Coach Kent Lewis later, “and I thought that’s what we’ve done all year. For some reason that’s disappeared and if we don’t have a better night on game five it’s not going to be a fun spring.”
In game five on Monday, it was still a frustrating night for the Kings but to their credit they gutted it out to extend the series by winning 3-2 in overtime.
Despite outplaying the Grizzlies by a wide margin and having more chances to score than the Grizzlies had shots, they needed the heroics of Jon Jutzi to score the winner at 11:11 of overtime.
Pettitt and Carter Shinkaruk got the Kings’ goals in regulation and Garteig was very good when he had to be in the net.
The large crowd was exhausted with the ebb and flow of the game and later Lewis smiled wryly and said, “I was wondering if the hockey gods didn’t like us.”
He complimented his players and their resolve to get the job done under trying circumstances.
“I thought we carried the play tonight in shots and chances,” he said, “and we get to live another day because we played our hockey and we brought it and worked hard. We gave them a little bit of an opportunity late there by getting caught and that was tough. We showed great resiliency.”
Game six was in Victoria on Tuesday night with game seven, if necessary, at 7 pm, tonight, Wednesday, March 16, at Hap Parker Arena.
