ROYALS ROLL INTO SPOKANE WITH HONORABLE MENTION

It appears the fine folks who come up with the CHL Top 10 list have taken notice of the Victoria Royals. If you haven’t noticed yet, Victoria now has the second most points in the Western Conference behind the unbelievably hot Kelowna Rockets. Those Rockets, who hammered Portland for the second straight game Thursday night 7-2 after a 9-3 victory Monday, both in Portland, were ranked number-1 in the country, with those same Winterhawks still at number-5 and the Eastern Conference leaders from Calgary are number-7. The Royals, who have won six in a row after a huge home-and-home sweep over Everett, earned honorable mention in the rankings.

Hard to believe the Royals have done so much damage, with wins in seven of their last eight games, without forward Logan Nelson who has missed eight of the last nine games. Not too many teams can score three goals in two games and win both of the them, but Victoria found a way with a 3-2 decision New Year’s Eve in Everett, then the 1-0 shoot-out victory the following day at home. The Royals easily have the most effective duo in goal in the league, as Patrik Polivka improved his goals against average to 2.43 and save percentage to .921 after the wins over Everett. Those numbers are both sixth among WHL goalies. Coleman Vollrath, who won both games against Prince George to come out of the holiday break, is tops in both GAA (1.99) & save percentage (.940). The Royals have played the most games of anyone in the WHL and yet they are one of only four teams to have allowed fewer than 100 goals. The three other teams have played no less than four fewer games, as well.

Now the Royals head on the road to meet the Spokane Chiefs, who sit sixth in the West with 48 points, one back of Seattle and three behind the Silvertips for fourth. The Royals have the unenviable task to try and slow down Mitch Holmberg, who continues to lead the league with 77 points and is one goal away from 40. He added two more on Tuesday night in Tri-City during a 4-2 Chiefs’ win over the Americans. He’s also done awfully well against the Royals this season, with three goals and nine points in three games, two of which Chiefs’ victories. In fact, the road team has gone three-for-three in the season series, with the Royals a 4-1 winner the last time they visited Spokane on October 19.
_______________________________________________________________________________
The Edmonton Oil Kings have added to their back-end with the addition of veteran defenceman Blake Orban. The Calgary product heads to the Alberta Capital from the Vancouver Giants in exchange for a second round bantam pick. Although the Oil Kings haven’t set the world on fire since the break ended as their 5-4 overtime win over Brandon Thursday night ended a three-game slide, they are certainly a favourite to win the Easterrn Conference again. With Griffin Reinhart, Cody Corbett and the emergence of draft eligibles Aaron Irving and Victoria product Dyson Mayo, Orban helps make the Oil Kings blue-line one of the deepest in the conference. I wonder if this trade was made last year if the Oil Kings would have had to give up a first round pick for Orban?

Last spring, Edmonton & Calgary went seven games in the East Final and with the Hitmen in front of the pack and with wins in 15 of their last 18 outings, there is a very good chance the WHL’s version of the Battle of Alberta could happen again in late April.
________________________________________________________________________________
Nice to see WHL’ers played a key role in Canada’s win over Switzerland in the World Junior Championship Quarter-Final Thursday. Griffin Reinhart has been such a calm influence on the back-end and was terrific in the victory with a goal and an assist, while his Oil Kings’ teammate Curtis Lazar has been very consistent and put people at ease in this country with the 3-1 goal in the third. Kent Simpson, the Oil Kings’ color man on their radio broadcasts with Corey Graham, said on our broadcast last month that the country would fall in love with the Ottawa Senators’ first round pick and he may be right with that. And Derrick Pouliot from Portland has been very steady and always dangerous in the offensive zone, with a brilliant goal against the Swiss. All the best to them in a semi-final tilt with Finland.
________________________________________________________________________________
Spent New Year’s Day in Calgary to host Shaw’s coverage of the Mac’s Midget Tournament that day. Finland U-17 won the event with a convincing 7-1 win over Switzerland U-17 and the display of talent was awesome from the Finns in the final game. Watch for players like Julius Nattinen, Patrik Laine & Olli Juolevi down the road, just a few of the players that were so impressive to watch. Unfortunately for the South Island Royals, they found out how good Finland’s team was in a 13-0 loss in the round robin. Hey, Finland crushed the competition in the tournament as they out-scored the opposition 62-11. That’s why the Okanagan Rockets deserve a big pat on the back for the effort they put up against Finland in the sem-final Tuesday night. The game was scoreless into the third period and tied at one with nine minutes to go in the third until Tyson Jost, the 7th overall pick by Everett in the 2013 Bantam Draft, took a five minute major and Finland scored on that power play en route to a 5-1 victory. Also got to see Jake Kryski who was taken 13th overall by the Raiders but is now with Kamloops in a deal that saw goalie Cole Cheveldave head to the Raiders. Noticed Kryski is currently on the Blazers’ roster and he’s a player that fans in Kamloops should be excited about.

The story of the day was the Female final between the Westman Wildcats (Hartney, MB) & Fraser Valley Phantom that was 18 seconds away from a fourth overtime before Megan Robertson finally ended it for the Wildcats. I was more exhausted from the stress of telling my wife that I might not make it home that night because there was seriously no end in sight for that game. Thankfully my flight back to Victoria was 10:35pm and had time to spare once Finland wrapped the tournament up with their performance.