Sunday Bloody Sunday.
While it’s not certain the 42-year-old hit song by iconic Irish band U2 will be played over the Kopar Memorial Arena sound system on Sunday, what we do know is the playoff picture got a whole lot clearer for the Prince George Spruce Kings.
Win and your in.
The Spruce Kings took care of business on home ice Saturday night in front of 1,505 fans grinding out a 5-4 victory over the Powell River Kings.
Faced with another must-win scenario, PG came out the blocks clicking on all cylinders.
Brock Cummings netted his 18th of the season on the power-play, outmuscling a pair of Powel River players at the top of the goal crease slipping a rebound past Vincent Lamberti to draw first blood in the contest.
In the second, PG continued to have its foot on the gas pedal as overage forward Nicholas Papineau made no mistake on a penalty shot against Lamberti going stick side along the five-hole doubling the lead to 2-0.
Just when the home crowd was about to get comfortable and watch a coronation during the BCHL’s royal matchup, Powell River swiped the Sceptor away from the Spruce Kings and saw a push of their own.
Eliot Compton went coast-to-coast through the Spruce Kings defence beating goaltender Charles-Edward Gravel.
Despite having seventeen skaters dressed (including two goalies), Powell River knew a thing or two about resilience.
Sam Grabner rifled a shot past Gravel on a broken play to even the score at 2-2, making the home crowd a lot quieter and tense.
Thirty-one seconds later, rookie defenceman Zachery Hachey picked a good time to score his first goal in the BCHL.
Hachey slid over against the boards, coralled the puck from an Owen Goodbrand pass and blasted the puck over the shoulder of Lamberti to re-claim the Spruce Kings lead to 3-2.
Kazumo Sasaki made it 4-2 capitalizing on the yeoman’s work in the trenches by Cummings and speedy rookie forward Ryan Wachtel.
In the third, it looked like the Spruce Kings would be home and cooled as Cumming squared away his second of the night, teeing off a saucer pass from Sasaki who had nothing but yawning cage to shoot at extending the advantage to three.
Powell River didn’t go away without a fight as Compton also netted his second of the contest. This led to a great power move out of the corner from Eli Friedman, making it a 5-4 game.
Prince George outshot the Kings 44-26 and went 1-for-3 on the power-play while the visitors failed to score on their lone opportunity.
The Spruce Kings improved to 22-25-4-2 on the season, two points back of the Langley Rivermen (21-23-9-1) for the last playoff spot in the Coastal Conference.
Speaking of the Rivermen, they blew an opportunity to punch their ticket to the postseason dropping a 7-5 decision on Saturday to the Chilliwack Chiefs.
It was a Chiefs squad that started third-string goaltender Kevin Jones and two affiliate players. Chilliwack also sat three of its top five scorers in Brady Milburn, Mateo Mrsic and Nathan Morin as well as Dwayne Jean Jr., Carter Anderson, Jayden Veney (defenceman) and Olivier Beaulieu (defenceman).
Montreal Canadiens draft pick and starting netminder Quentin Miller was scratched by Chilliwack.
Ex-Spruce Kings goalie Dylan Johnson made 27 saves on 30 shots for Langley in defeat relieving starter Florian Wade who allowed three markers on six shots.
If PG beats Powell River, they will face off against Chilliwack in the first round of the postseason as they would hold the tiebreaker against the Rivermen due to more wins.
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