Not very many Kimberley Dynamiter fans, or even their coach, can remember when the team last lost two games in a row before this weekend.
The Dynamiters lost two games by one goal each this past weekend; 3-2 to Fernie on Friday, and 6-5 to Creston on Saturday.
Fernie scored the lone goal in the first on Friday, and the first goal in the second. Harrison Risdon got the Dynamiters within one that same period, but Fernie got the lead back to two. In the third, Brock Palmer scored on the power play.
To Head Coach and General Manager Derek Stuart, all the Dynamiters’ woes were penalty related on Friday.
“I thought the quality of play was excellent on Friday. But we took unnecessary penalties,” he said. “Our penalty kill had a bad night and made two enormous mistakes. Otherwise, we dominated.”
Saturday night’s game was a back and forth affair, with Creston scoring, Kimberley tying it on a goal by Beau Larson, the Thunder Cats scoring again and the Dynamiters again tying it up on a goal by Erik Delaire, then going ahead on a goal by Brock Palmer. That was all in the first period.
In the second, Kimberley scored again (Daniel Anton) for a two goal lead, then Creston scored to make it close. Delaire scored again to put the lead back to two. Before the end of the second period, Creston scored again and the score was 5 - for Kimberley.
But the only scoring in the third was two goals by the Thunder Cats, making the final 6-5 for Creston.
“On Saturday, maybe we had an emotional let down,” Stuart said. “We were not prepared to play our style of hockey.”
However, despite the two losses, Stuart is not overly concerned that there is a lot to fix for the remaining seven regular season games.
He says that while the penalty kill was not great on Friday, that was likely a blip.
One thing he does want to address is taking unnecessary penalties.
“When you take unnecessary penalties, and then your penalty kill has an off night, that’s a bad combination,” he said.
The Dynamiters have only one game this weekend, at home Friday against Creston, and then it’s back on the road the weekend after for games against Grand Forks and Spokane.