By Jeromy Corrigan

Exhibition

Cents hand Kings 1st loss of exhibition season

Oct 26, 2020 | 9:51 AM

After a decisive win Friday night in Merritt, the Spruce Kings returned to Prince George Sunday afternoon for their first home exhibition game in the 2nd half of a home and home with the Cents.

The 3rd meeting of the exhibition season between the two squads was physical in the opening 20 minutes with neither team giving an inch.

The Kings would have a trio of opportunities to bury the opening tally on the power play, but former Cariboo Cougars netminder Colton Phillips-Watts was up to the task and kept PG off the board.

Merritt would open the scoring in the middle stanza on a power play of their own.

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Grayson Valente would get the biscuit at the blue line and walk-in on the left side and rip one top corner over the glove of Aaron Trotter to make it 1-0 for the visitors.

Late in the frame, the Kings would respond and tie the game at 1 thanks to a picture-perfect shot by Andrew Seaman which was his 2nd of the exhibition season.

The game seemed destined for overtime, but with less than a minute to go the Kings would take a too many men on the ice penalty which game Merritt a later power play.

With 3 seconds left in the 3rd Talon Zakall’s wrist shot from the line would be tipped in by Ben Ward, which lifted Merritt to a 2-1 win and hand the Kings their first loss of the exhibition season.

“The team could have definitely brought a lot more,” shared 20-year-old defenceman Mason Waite to CKPG.

“We are still learning our new systems and there are going to be some ups and downs with a new team like this, but we feel we definitely didn’t bring our best effort.”

Andrew Seaman was the lone goal scorer for the Kings in their first exhibition game at the RMCA and he is happy he has been able to produce offensively early on.

“Feels good to get some production on the board. My teammates have been there to feed me the puck and finish the puck. So it feels good to get the confidence up early on in the pre-season.”

The Kings will have to wait a week and a half before they return to the ice for game action.

The club will host Merritt on November 7th.