The Victoria Royals’ first visit to Swift Current, Sask., in nearly five years was, well, hardly worth the wait. The Broncos defeated the Royals 6-1 in a Western Hockey League game before 1,908 fans at the InnovationPlex.
The Royals’ power play, which has been OK this season at times, devolved into a shambles Friday night. Not only did it go 0-5, it allowed two short-handed goals by the Broncos. It’s one thing for a power play not to add to the offence, quite another to actively take away from it.
“That’s difficult, obviously, when that happens, and the power-play guys took it hard,” said Victoria GM and head coach Dan Price.
“One of those was just a bad bounce. That’s the randomness of hockey.”
Logan Cunningham made his first career WHL start in goal for Victoria and held his own on eight shots in a first period that concluded 1-1. But things didn’t go well in the second period with three goals allowed, in a span of just over five minutes, on eight shots in the middle period as the Broncos took an unassailable 4-1 lead. Cunningham finished with 20 saves on 26 shots. Joey Rocha made 21 saves on 22 shots in goal for Swift Current.
“The chances were about even. The difference was they [Broncos] connected on their chances and we didn’t on ours,” said Price.
Victoria forward Brayden Schuurman, in his third game since returning after being injured in the rookie camp of the Boston Bruins, scored his first goal of the season to open scoring in the first period. But that’s as good as it got for the Royals.
Victoria (2-10-2) began the season with seven consecutive losses, and then went through a brief stretch of offering a glimmer of a revival, before now going winless in four games at 0-3-1. The Broncos moved to 4-7.
It’s one thing to lose out-of-conference games, as the Royals have this season, to Canadian Hockey League top-10 teams such as the Winnipeg Ice and Red Deer Rebels, but quite another to drop one to a young, rebuilding squad such as the Broncos.
The Royals will try it again tonight in Medicine Hat against the 4-6-1 Tigers as Victoria will get to the mid-point of its six-game road swing through the Eastern Conference Central Division, its first such trip since before the pandemic. The sojourn began with a 6-2 loss in Red Deer on Wednesday.
