PENHOLD – The result wasn’t what he would have liked, but RDC Kings hockey head coach Trevor Keeper was pleased with a 5-3 loss to the NAIT Ooks in Alberta Colleges Men’s Hockey League play at the Penhold Regional Multiplex Saturday.
“I thought we played well the whole game,” he said. “They are a really talented team with a lot of speed and a lot of older guys and some guys who played pro. But we focused on our forecheck and checking in the neutral zone so as to not allow them to enter our zone with speed. Even our backcheck provided pressure and they did a good job of picking up their men.
“I thought we did the little things tonight. We blocked shots and were anticipating not reacting. We were getting to the puck as soon as it got to them.”
The Kings trailed 2-1 and 4-3 by periods and outplayed the Ooks in the final stanza, only to see Charles Wells score into an empty net with 12.3 seconds remaining after an obvious non-call on a hook in the NAIT end.
The Kings outshot the Ooks 8-5 in the third period and had all the best opportunities to score. Ooks netminder Kyle Birch was solid as was RDC’s Kraymer Barnstable, who finished with 32 saves. The Kings had 31 shots on Birch.
“Birch is aggressive and did a good job as we created a lot of shots off our pressure and hard work below the goal line,” said Keeper, who also liked the physical play.
“We wanted to be physical and pound them when we could to get them off the puck, and I thought we did a good job.”
Winger Jody Sick did a great job using his body and also scored his first ACAC goal at 1:40 of the second period to tie the score at 2-2.
Mike Marianchuk opened the scoring for the Kings at 5:18 of the first period with Scott Fellnermayr connecting at 17:34 and Connor Hoekstra at 18:11.
Fellnermayr scored on the power play at 10:48 of the second period before Regan Wilton tied it again at 11:55. Former Red Deer Rebel Riley Sheen scored what proved to be the winning goal at 17:16 of the second period.
Saturday’s performance was vastly superior to a 5-0 loss at NAIT Friday.