Early goals sink Mills’ confidence

“Kirby oh Kirby wherefore art thou?”

What was supposed to be a six-point set of games, against division rivals, the Mills could only muster 10 goals, while giving up 22, in a weekend coach Glen Watson described as, “disappointing.”

An obvious problem was the goaltending.

“There was a lot of pressure on Luke [Siemens, Millionaires goaltender],” Watson added in defence of his netminder.

At the same time, Watson conceded that giving up goals in the first minute of a game is not very helpful for team confidence.

“It can be deflating,” he said.

The final game of the set saw the Trail Smoke Eaters enter the Vault for a Sunday afternoon game.

Mills faithful were expecting their team to come out full of vim and vigour after losing the first two games of the weekend to the Prince George Spruce Kings and the Williams Lake Timberwolves.

The Sunday afternoon game was over 30 seconds into the game when Nick Sandor caught everyone napping and slipped a shot past Mills netminder Taylor Pears who was on loan from the Cowichan Valley Capitals.

Pears did regroup and stopped seven of the next eight shots he faced during the first period.

The Mills fought back with a tally of their own four minutes later. Eliot Raibl found a loose puck in front of the net and shoveled it past Smoke Eaters goalie Kiefer Smiley for the power play marker.

Trail took the lead once more at the 17:00 mark of the first period when Raibl was caught pinching, and that set up a two-on-one that saw Darnell Dyck redirect a pass behind Pears.

Despite outshooting the Smoke Eaters 15 – 9, the Mills hit the dressing room behind by only a single goal after one period of play.

With Siemens back in net to start the second period, the Mills tied the score at 7:47 when Spencer Graboski whacked in a loose puck in front of the Trail net.

With the score tied at two, the Mills fans began to stir, hoping their team would pull out a win.

It was not to be.

Trail went on a shooting spree and scored the first of their four second-period goals at 8:23. Eric Walker took a nice pass from Marc-Antoine Chaput and snapped a wrist shot high glove side from the top of the face off circle. The goal proved to be the game winner.

Trail scored three more times in the second period, outshooting the Mills 21 – 10.

The Smoke Eaters added another two goals in the third period to hand the Mills an 8 – 2 loss.

In two periods of play, Siemens, who had stymied the Vernon Vipers a week earlier, allowed six goals on 30 shots.

“It’s the shock of the first two games that really got us,” Watson said of the third loss in as many games.

“Every one of our guys thought realistically that we should have three wins this weekend.

“It’s a mental game, the guys were pretty fragile Sunday.”

Saturday, the Mills travelled to Williams Lake to take on the Timberwolves.

In what is turning out to be a bad habit, the Mills gave up an early goal to start the game with Justin Bardarson slipping the puck past Siemens at the 11 second mark of the first period.

The Mills fought their way back into the period and counted a power-play goal with just under five minutes to play. Darick Ste-Marie jumped on a rebound in traffic at the side of the net and flipped it over a sprawling Timberwolves netminder Sean Donnelly.

The goal was Ste-Marie’s fifth of the year, to give him 15 points after 20 games.

The Timberwolves started the second period in the same manner they started the first period, lighting the red light barely 30 seconds into the period, when Brendan Nadolny’s wrist shot from the slot found the back of the net.

Trever Hertz tied the game up for the Mills with his first goal of the game when he skated in alone on Donnelly and beat him high stick side at 8:53.

see PAGE A16

The Timberwolves closed out the second period with a goal from Anthony Delong and another by Trent Murdoch to give the Timberwolves a 4 – 2 lead after two periods of play.

The Timberwolves scored another two goals to start the third period. Justin Hogan went high glove side on Siemens at 2:06 of the third period and then Kyle Beaulieu blasted a screen shot from the point behind Siemens, again high glove side.

The Millionaires looked tense on the ice in the face of a Timberwolves team that kept coming at them.

“We were fighting the puck, we weren’t getting bounces,” Watson explained.

The Mills persevered, and finally dusted off their side of the scoreboard with a short-handed goal by Mills captain Hertz who created a turnover in the neutral zone and skated in all alone on Donnelly.

The Timberwolves added an empty net goal with three second to play to give their fans a 7 – 3 win and some free pizza.

“I found that at times during the game we eased up, and then we tried to do too much,” Watson said.

“We were just way out of whack. We just didn’t play very well.”

“They [Timberwolves] played a good game,” Watson added, “they’re improving.”

The weekend was a difficult one for all involved. Mills coaches spent Monday meeting with each player individually and then as a team.

“Every team goes through this,” Watson said.

“Early in the season Trail was in a bad way, it’s our turn now.”

Despite the weekend’s events, the Millionaires did get some good news Monday when they acquired forward Jon Puskar from the Burnaby Express of the BCHL. Puskar was Burnaby’s leading scorer, and currently sits 14th in scoring.

In exchange, the Mills parted with James Bettauer acquired earlier this season from the Penticton Vees.

“We were looking for someone to put on the line with Hertz,” Watson said of the motivation for the trade.

The Mills also sent Pears back to Cowichan Valley and brought in goaltender Mike Smith from the Kimberly Dynamiters.

In three games with the Dynamiters, Smith has a goals against average of 2.33 and a save percentage of 0.936. Look for Smith to get the start in Prince George Tuesday night. Puck drops at 7:00 p.m.

Drop three to extend losing streak to five

+More Sports Headlines
<Back to Mobile Edition