PENHOLD – Going into the off-season RDC Kings hockey head coach Trevor Keeper made a concerted effort to add depth and skill to his blue line.
Although they are only four games into the Alberta Colleges Men’s Hockey League regular season, it’s obvious Keeper accomplished his goal. The Kings are seven deep on the blueline, with the newcomers looking as steady as the three veterans.
That was obvious once again Saturday afternoon as the Kings downed the Briercrest Bible College Clippers 6-0 at the Penhold Regional Multiplex to run their season record to 3-1.
“Our defence is very mobile … they can all skate and move the puck,” said Keeper. “We tell them their No. 1 job is to get the puck to the forwards and join the rush … we don’t have any defencemen who are selfish and want to carry it up and risk a turnover.”
One of the more mobile rearguards is newcomer David Heath, who came in from the Melfort Mustangs. He skates as well as any defenceman in the ACAC and when he does join the rush he’s able to easily get back. He also opened the scoring Saturday, jumping in off the point to take a perfect cross-crease pass from Pat Martens to beat BBC netminder Levi Nelson.
“It is important for the defencemen to join the rush as in this league teams are getting better backchecking year after year and you need that second wave” said Keeper.
Third-year veteran Blair Mulder, who also scored after jumping in off the point to make the score 4-0 in the third period, likes what he sees.
“Our young defencemen have stepped in … we can’t complain about any of them,” he said. “The new guys also get a lot of power play minutes and they can produce which gives Marc (Alex Marcinew) and myself a chance to be fresh and play the tough defensive minutes.”
As well, several of the D-men can also step in up front is need be. One is Dylan Baer, who played the right wing in both games against BBC and scored his first goal at 16:39 of the second period to make it 2-0. Mike Marianchuk made it 3-0 at 19:15 of the middle stanza. Rookie rearguard Mike Statchuk and second-year forward Connor Hartley connected at 10:23 and 16:52 of the third period to complete the scoring.
It was the third win in a row for the Kings after opening the season with a 5-4 loss to Concordia.
“The last three games we’ve scored 19 goals and allowed just one and consistently had 50 shots a game,” said Keeper. “We also set a goal to average less than 10 shots a period and we allowed just 26 today.”
Mike Salmon was the beneficiary of the tough defence as he played his first game of the season and registered the shutout.
“Briercrest isn’t the best team in the league but it’s important to be playing well as we head into a big weekend against NAIT,” said Keeper.
The Kings visit the defending champion NAIT Ooks Friday and host them Saturday at 7 p.m. in Penhold.
Nelson, who played with the Canmore Eagles, made 47 saves for the Clippers and was named the BBC player of the game. Heath received the player of the game for the Kings.