There may be a distressing pattern emerging this month when the Victoria Royals host teams from the Eastern Conference with losing records.
The Royals (16-7-1) needed to rally from a 2-0 deficit and were hard-pressed to edge the Western Hockey League bottom-dwelling Edmonton Oil Kings 3-2 on Nov. 10 at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre. The Red Deer Rebels, who snapped a six-game losing streak by stunning the Royals 5-3 last week on Blanshard, have since lost three consecutive games.
Tonight come the Lethbridge Hurricanes (7-12-1), who are winless in their last eight games. It sounds like a Royals recipe for disaster.
But Victoria head coach Dan Price isn鈥檛 buying the notion of his team being maybe not as motivated for, or perhaps even snake-bitten at home, against Eastern Conference lesser-lights.
鈥淥ur players get up for every game. I never felt we were flat against Edmonton or Red Deer,鈥� said Price.
鈥淭hose teams come in here very energized and looking to play their best games against us.鈥�
Which also makes Price wary of the Hurricanes, despite their current struggles: 鈥淭hey played well in Kelowna and Kamloops but had puck luck go against them. Hurricanes are a very fast team and are well coached.鈥�
There is no doubt some talent in Lethbridge, even if it has yet to truly come to the fore this season in group fashion.
The Hurricanes feature six-foot-four goaltender Stuart Skinner, selected in the third round of the 2017 NHL draft by Edmonton, and in whom the Oilers can only be hoping is a possible long-term answer to their crease woes.
Lethbridge centre Jordy Bellerive, who has 10 goals and 25 points, was the second overall pick in the 2014 WHL bantam draft and is a former sa国际传媒 U-18 player who was signed to an NHL entry-level contract by the Pittsburgh Penguins in September. Forward Giorgio Estephan, who has nine goals and 28 points, attended Minnesota Wild training camp this fall and made his pro debut with the Rochester Americans of the AHL two years ago.
Mobile sa国际传媒 U-18 defenceman Calen Addison, the second overall selection in the 2015 WHL bantam draft and projected for the second or third rounds of the 2018 NHL draft, has four goals and 18 points for Lethbridge and was the second-leading point-getter last season among WHL rookie blue-liners. Fellow-Hurricanes rearguard Tate Olson was taken in the seventh round by the Vancouver Canucks in 2015.
Victoria captain Matthew Phillips is tied for fourth in WHL scoring with 41 points and is fifth in goals with 18. But the Royals are the highest-scoring team in the league and can come at you in several different ways with many different skaters. That was evident in the Royals鈥� eastern Washington weekend sweep of highly-regarded Spokane and Tri-City.
鈥淭hose were important types of games for us because they were two very different games [a tightly-played 1-0 victory over Spokane and a 7-3 goal-splurge over Tri-City],鈥� said Price.
鈥淲e showed maturity and poise and stuck with our process and method in both types of games.鈥�
The Royals home stand continues Friday and Saturday with a set against the defending WHL-champion Seattle Thunderbirds.
