Edmonton Journal article (Oil Kings powerless for two periods)

Oil Kings powerless for two periods

Manage only eight shots in first 40 minutes

Chris O'Leary, Freelance

Published: 3:32 am

EDMONTON - In front of an underwhelming 3,701 fans on Friday night, the Edmonton Oil Kings found the stage to have an equally underwhelming performance.

The Oil Kings laid an egg offensively against the Kamloops Blazers, managing only eight shots on goal through the first 40 minutes of play in their 5-2 loss at Rexall Place.

Blazers forward Tyler Shattock had two goals and an assist, while centre Jimmy Bubnik added a pair of goals. C.J. Stretch scored the game-winner for Kamloops in the second period.

Oil Kings goalie Dalyn Flette denies Kamloops' Shayne Wiebe in first-period action Friday at Rexall Place.

Greg Southam, The Journal

Brett Breitkreuz and Brenden Dowd found the back of the net for Edmonton, which saw its two-game win streak come to an end.

Conversely, Kamloops put a halt to its three-game losing skid.

The night proved to be one that the entire Oil Kings organization would liked to do over. To that end, coach Steve Pleau had his team stay behind after the game for extra workouts, to make up for those disappointing first 40 minutes.

"We're going to go for a nice little workout," Dowd said. "I'm not too excited about it.

"We're going to work for those 40 minutes that we didn't play. I know we're going to work for 40 minutes. Who knows what (the coaching staff) have in store."

While Pleau wouldn't get into the specifics of workouts, he did vent on the incomplete effort his team offered.

"We didn't even come close to deserving that win," he said.

"Give Kamloops credit, they played a good road game. They were smart, they didn't make mistakes and they didn't turn the puck over a lot. But I mean, what'd we have ... eight shots through two periods? That's just unacceptable."

"We didn't come to play," Breitkreuz added.

"We weren't mentally prepared. We weren't moving our feet and it showed. The game was in our hands.

"I still won't tell you that they're a better hockey team than us. They played hard, we didn't. End of story."

The night was one that Oil Kings goaltender Dalyn Flette would like to forget. Flette made 13 saves on just 17 shots from his former team.

On the Kamloops side of the rink, Justin Leclerc was solid, making 24 saves, the majority of them coming in

the early stages of the third period to stifle the Oil Kings' hopes of a comeback.

The Blazers struck first, scoring the lone goal of the opening period, when Bubnick one-timed a setup from Brendan Ranford and Dalibor Bortnak past Flette at 13:03 of the first.

More troubling than the deficit for the Oil Kings was their 11-3 shot deficit for the first period.

Edmonton's power play, a problem throughout its first seven games, showed little improvement. The Oil Kings went one-for-seven with the man advantage and surrendered a short-handed goal to Shattock 1:12 into the second period.

Making matters worse, the Oil Kings didn't get their first shot on goal of the middle frame until 11:36 had elapsed.

Kamloops pushed its advantage to 3-0 midway through the second, when Stretch sent another one-timer past Flette on the stick side. Breitkruz got the Oil Kings on the board with his power-play goal at 15:45 in the second period.

The Oil Kings showered Leclerc with 18 shots in the final 20 minutes, but Bubnik took away whatever wind was in the Oil Kings' sails with a goal at 11:31.

Dowd's rebound goal at 18:18 was equalled by Shattock's second goal of the night, an empty-net tally with 1:11 left.

The Oil Kings will see action again on Wednesday when they travel to Medicine Hat to play the Tigers.




© The Edmonton Journal 2008