After several gruelling road trips, the Kimberley Dynamiters were finally back on home ice at the Civic Centre on Tuesday, Dec. 10 and managed to fight through their exhaustion to secure a 4-2 win against the Golden Rockets.
The Rockets are a team the Dynamiters expect to get a win against, especially on home ice. They currently are at the bottom of the Eddie Mountain division, with the Dynamiters having nearly twice as many points. Furthermore, the last time the two teams met the Nitros came away with a 9-1 win.
However, after a scoreless first period, it looked like the game could go either way.
"It was very ugly," Stuart said. "I think it was mainly because our last couple weeks have been hard. We’ve been on long bus trips both weekends and a long bus trip home Saturday, getting home at 3 or 4 in the morning, they’re exhausted."
The stalemate was finally broken halfway through the second period by a goal from Hayden Selin, his seventh of the season and the only goal until the third period.
That would come from Luke Davies, his thirteenth of the season, less than a minute into the final period. The 2006-born Calgarian now has 13 goals and 16 assists in 24 games played in his first season with the Dynamiters, averaging 1.21 points per game — though he said that's not what's on the forefront of his mind.
"For me it’s not so much about the points, it’s more driving plays, driving offence, getting the chances and I think as long as we’re getting the chances the points will come," Davies said post game on Tuesday. "Try to lead by example in my play and that’s all I focus on."
Davies agreed the Nitros didn't get off to the start they would have hoped to on Tuesday night, but they managed to get the job done.
"I think it was closer than we wanted to, but we’ve now won two in a row, snapped our losing streak and it’s good to get back off on the right foot," he said. "It’s been a hard last month for us not playing at home and it’s really nice to be back, it’s nice to be back in front of our own fans," he said. "It’s nice also to not have to drive four or five hours to play hockey again, so that’s huge."
Assistant captain Tyler Lindal snagged himself a short-handed goal to make it 3-0 a few minutes after Davies' goal. The Rockets got on the board with a nice shot from Chase Pilling, but the Nitros answered right back after Davies drove the puck into the net.
Liam Wienke of the Rockets scored his first goal of the season on a power play at around with around six minutes left in the game, and that would be the goal of a scrappy Tuesday night contest that saw its fair share of fights and penalties.
One of those, a checking from behind double minor, was given to new Remy Spooner, one of the team's two new acquisitions, who are blending into the team nicely, and contributed a lot in the most recent road trip, Stuart said.
"Both [new acquisitions] had great weekends," Stuart said. "I think combined they got five of our six goals on the weekend and they struggled a little bit tonight, but they both have speed, they both have high hockey IQs and I think they’re fitting in really well so far.
"I knew [Spooner] wasn’t afraid to be physical I think tonight he was probably more than physical than we needed him to be, especially taking those penalties, but again when you’re tired you make bad decisions and there were a lot of them, but I think some of those penalties were bad decisions as well."
Stuart also gave a lot of credit to Marc Samyn, one of the team's two new goaltenders this season. The win against Golden was Samyn's tenth-straight start in a row and he played well.
"In the first two periods there weren’t too many chances, but there were some pretty big saves and I think he was the difference for us to allow us to get those three goals in the third," Stuart said.
After their win against Golden, the Nitros got a much-needed day off on Wednesday, hit the rink to work on special teams and then welcomed the Castlegar Rebels on Friday, Dec. 13; the first meeting of these two teams so far this season.
It would be the Rebels who struck first, with a goal from Brayden Rotach midway through the first. Tristan Weill, last season's team and divisional MVP, answered back with his tenth goal of the year.
Davies nabbed another early on the first, with the Dynamiters again capitalizing on a power play.
Marcus scored two short minutes later and after one more goal from the Rebels, the Dynamiters started laying it on thick. They'd score three more before the end of the second period, and by the end of the game they'd made it 8-2, with three of those coming from Luke Davies — a hat-trick and four total points to add to his already impressive season total.
The Dynamiters will head to Golden on Friday, Dec. 20 for another game against the Rockets, before welcoming the Grand Forks Border Bruins to the Civic Centre on Saturday, Dec. 21. They will then have a short break, before returning for the always highly anticipated Christmas Classic against Fernie the following weekend.
