by JASON PETERS
courtesy the Prince George Citizen

The Prince George Spruce Kings, who added four impact players to their roster at last week’s BCHL trade deadline, completed a 3-0, post-trade weekend Sunday afternoon at the Coliseum by beating the Westside Warriors 4-3. The Spruce Kings began the weekend with a similar 4-3 victory against the same Warriors Friday night and then dumped the Williams Lake Timberwolves 3-1 on Saturday night.

Now, the task for the new-look Prince George Spruce Kings is to show they can beat the elite teams in the B.C. Hockey League. The Warriors and Timberwolves both trail the Kings in the Interior Conference standings, a fact not lost on Spruce Kings forward Curt Morrison, who set up two of his team’s goals on Sunday earning first star honours.

“Williams Lake and Westside, they’ve been in the bottom half of our division,” Morrison said. “They’ve really had our number this year but we showed them this weekend that we’re a new team. We’re going to have a bigger test next weekend playing Salmon Arm and we’re going to have to see what we’re really about next weekend.”

The Spruce Kings will host the Salmon Arm Silverbacks in their next outing, Friday night at 7:00 in the Coliseum. The Silverbacks are next on the Spruce Kings radar with only four points separating the two teams in the Interior Division and the edge going to the Spruce Kings who have four games in hand.

One troubling aspect about the two Prince George wins against Westside is the fact the Warriors were able to stage third-period comebacks in both games. In both contests, the Spruce Kings led 4-1 going into the third.

“We had two really good periods,” Spruce Kings head coach and general manager Ed Dempsey said of Sunday’s game, watched by 785 fans. “After that — and give Westside credit because they worked hard and kept coming — the way we played in the last 10 minutes, we’ve got to be a lot better than that or we’re not going anywhere except to hell in a handbasket.”

Jason Yuel (24) tips in his first

The Spruce Kings, on the first BCHL goal by newcomer Jason Yuel, opened the scoring at 12:19 of the first period. Yuel, captain of the Winnipeg Saints prior to last Wednesday’s trade deadline, tipped home a shot by Morrison while the Spruce Kings were on a power play.

“That one felt really good for sure — it kind of felt like scoring my first one entering junior hockey, to be honest,” said Yuel, who popped 30 goals in 42 games with the Saints. “I didn’t want it to drag on, so it was nice to get the first one, get it off my back.”

Just 37 seconds later, Alain Joanette, another of the players added at the trade deadline, scored on a breakaway deke giving Prince George a 2-0 first period lead.

In the second, Jeremy Roberts and Dylan Exton — on another breakaway — pushed the advantage to 4-0 with goals 47 seconds apart. The Warriors got one back before the period ended, a deflection by Kevin Walrod that got past new Spruce Kings goalie Jordan White.

After outshooting the Warriors 28-18 through forty minutes, the Spruce Kings stopped taking the play to the Warriors and surrendered a shorthanded goal to Tommy Grant and a powerplay marker from Cory Pritz. A blocker save by White on Walrod with 1:20 to go allowed the Spruce Kings to escape with the win. The Warriors pulled goaltender Stephen Caple after that but failed to generate a quality chance. Westside outshot Prince George 15-5 in the third.

It should be noted that all three forwards that the Spruce Kings added to their roster last week made impacts on the scoresheet during their first three games. Yuel with the one goal, Joanette ended the weekend with two goals and one assist and Tyler Helfrich connected for three goals and two assists. White, who struggled as a backup for the Prince George Cougars, is now 2-0 with the Prince George Spruce Kings.

“Adding those new guys really improves our team,” Morrison said. “We’ve got a lot of depth up front and so far it’s looking good for us.”

“On paper, we’re a lot better,” added Dempsey. “But we were playing very well leading into the trade deadline. We’ve shown flashes of being a way better team than we were prior to Jan. 10 but we’ve still got a lot of work to do.”

The Spruce Kings (22-14-1-4) have now won seven of their past 11 games and have points in ten of their last 12 games. In four games against the Salmon Arm Silverbacks, the Spruce Kings are 1-2-0-1 but haven’t played them since December 1st when Paul Dainton left the team for Fort McMurray of the Alberta Junior Hockey League. Since then Joe Rodwell has shown the League that he can step in and get the job done posting a record of 6-3-0-1 in his starts. Prior to the trade deadline, Anthony Manfredi got his first BCHL start earning a single point in a 3-3 tie against the Victoria Grizzlies. Now with the addition of Jordan White, the Spruce Kings have a tandem that can seemingly allow the team to win every game.

The BCHL is idol for much of this week as the annual All-Star Game is being held in Surrey. Jeff Forsythe is the lone representative for the Prince George Spruce Kings after being named the second defenceman for the Interior Division squad. The All-Star Game is Wednesday at 7:00pm. BCHL action resumes on Friday with every team except Trail in action. The Smoke Eaters will be scoreboard watching as they sit in third place in the Interior Division with 54 points, one better than the Silverbacks and five in front of Prince George. The Spruce Kings also have four games in hand on Trail making for a very interesting scenario on Friday night.

Advance tickets can be purchased at any Subway location in Prince George or from the Spruce Kings office in the Coliseum. For more information please contact the Prince George Spruce Kings at (250) 564-1747.

The Prince George Spruce Kings would like to thank the Prince George Citizen for allowing the reprint of their original article from Monday January 15, 2007.