Smokies look to keep rolling against Spruce Kings

The Trail Smoke Eaters have won the past three meetings with the Prince George Spruce Kings.

The Smokies are unbeaten in their last two outings, earning three out of a possible four points.

It wasn't much of a battle in West Kelowna last Saturday as the Warriors would opened the scoring just over seven minutes into the first periods but the orange and black fought back with five unanswered goals.

This was a night after the Smokies earned only their fourth point (one win, two ties) through a dozen games at Cominco Arena this season.

Arguably their most entertaining home game of the year ended in a 4-4 draw with the Victoria Grizzlies.

The home town crowd was on their feet after the second overtime solved nothing.

When I asked Nick how important it was to get a win during his first weekend behind the bench, he kind of shrugged it off.

He knows this is going to be a "process".

"For me, it is maximizing our opportunities, shift by shift, and as long as we are doing that and I am here to focus on correcting and teaching, [winning] will come as a reflection of that approach I think."

The last time these two met, Trail took a 4-2 victory in Prince George.

Smokies Forward Brendan Lamont had a two goal three game performance in the match.

Since then the Spruce Kings have gone 9-4-1-1 and have earned points in their last six games.

During a chat on MountainFM Friday morning Deschenes recognized PG is second in their division and they are hosting a good team.

In a phone interview the day before he told me, "the focus is going to be inward. It's going to be 'how do we play our game?'. [The game] is in our building and we want to play a certain way. We got that first win on the road and now it wiould be nice to get that first win at home for the fans."

Deschenes said they will be facing some "adversity" in the future and he is still very much trying to get comfortable with his new team after their first full week of practice.

"We [did] some d-zone coverage, we talked about neutral zone and we're really working on our offensive game; so attacking the net, going for rebounds, and then sustained pressure."

Jesse Knowler's five performance last weekend earned him an honorable mention for player of the week.

Knowler is a guy that is expected to be producing every weekend and he performance in the faceoff circle last Saturday in West Kelowna was said to be phenomenal as well.

Two Smoke Eaters netted their first BCHL goal last weekend including blueliner Nate Browne who has only played six games this season due to injury.

Browne was part of the KIJHL's North Okanagan Knights team that made it to the league championship finals with the Castlegar Rebels, with the Rebels taking the best of seven series in five.

The Rebels were actually the same team that also eliminated the Riley Brandt - the other Smokie to notch his first goal in the league - and the Beaver Valley Nite Hawks in the divisional final last year.

Deschenes is even more recently removed from the KI.

A connection that could benefit this Smoke Eater club that has a solid mix of both veteran and rookie players.

Back to the talk with Nick on MountainFM this morning, he said Bill Birks deserves credit for gathering this group in Trail together.

Deschenes sounded excited with the pieces he has - almost as if he could in his head all them falling into place and completing the puzzle,