With 13 games remaining in the BCHL regular season, the Trail Smoke Eaters are getting into playoff mode.
The Smoke Eaters hit the road for back-to-back games against the Wenatchee Wild this weekend and Salmon Arm the next, in what could be two very possible first-round playoff scenarios, depending on the Smokies finish.
“It’s going to be tight,” said head coach and GM Jeff Tambellini. “We’re going to play a lot of divisional games coming down the stretch, that should determine where we’re at, but in our division it really doesn’t matter where we slot in. We’re going to have to go through Merritt, Wenatchee, or Penticton to win this division. So whatever way, we have to play three great teams … there are no easy series.”
Despite dropping a pair of games to Nanaimo, 4-3 in OT, and Victoria, 5-4, the Smokies have earned five of eight points in 2019 and took some positives away from the weekend losses.
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“I liked 90 per cent of our players,” said Tambellini. “There were a couple guys that played great games, Max Kryski (with two goals), it was his best game of the year. And our penalty kill, to shut out that group on the PK and actually all weekend, it was great.”
The Smokies were perfect on the penalty kill going 10-for-10 in both games, however, they only managed one goal on 13 power plays, which included being shut out on two 5-on-3s against the Grizzlies on Sunday. Not that the Smoke Eaters power play has been bad all year; currently Trail is fifth in the league in power-play success at a respectable 20.6 per cent and 12th on the penalty kill at 77.4 per cent.
“It all comes down to executing when the pressure is on and finding ways to make plays,” said Tambellini. “It’s the result of having the right guys on the ice, and I like the guys we had on the ice … but it’s a big point of the game and usually it is the turning point, it’s a game-changing moment and the fact we had two of them, that is tough to swallow.”
Conversely, Wenatchee has the league’s third best PK at 84 per cent, but are at 17.4 per cent on the power play, with only Surrey, 15.9 per cent, owning a worse conversion rate.
The 25-15-2-1 Wild are in third place in the Interior, but have stumbled of late, losing four of six games this month, and in their last meeting on Dec. 19, Trail defeated Wenatchee 5-2.
Part of the downturn may be attributed to the absence of Wild top forward Lukas Sowder (11-26-37), who was out of the line up with injury the past two weeks, but returned in a 3-2 loss to Penticton on Wednesday. Centerman Matt Gosiewski leads the team in scoring with 24 goals and 43 points, while veterans Brandon Koch and Chad Sasaki are the Wild’s top d-men with 31 and 28 points respectively.
If the Wild has a weakness, it may be between the pipes with Austin Park sporting a 2.84 goals-against average and a pedestrian .883 save percentage in 31 games, while Cal Sandquist has a 2.55 GAA, and .884 SP in 21 appearances.
The Smoke Eaters’ goaltending was also questionable prior to the Jan. 10 trade deadline, with an untested Jr. B goalie backing-up 20-year-old starter Adam Marcoux, who leads the league in minutes played.
“It was my job to find a way to take minutes off Adam, because if anything ever happened to him down the stretch, we were leveraging our team’s success on one guy’s health,” explained Tambellini.
The last minute acquisition of Donovan Buskey from the WHL’s Prince Albert Raiders changed all that in a hurry, and the addition of defenceman Luke Gallagher from the WHL Spokane Chiefs also bolstered their back end - and the best part for Trail is that they didn’t lose any players as a result.
“The trade deadline and movement deadline is such an unpredictable animal, and I did not want to take the risk of leveraging any of our assets coming back next year,” he said. “There were a couple of players we would have liked to add, maybe another forward, but again the price was so high, it wasn’t worth it to do that with this group.”
At the end of last season, the Smoke Eaters dealt away much of its future, losing Ryan Moon, Daine Dubois, and Andre Ghantous as “future considerations” in earlier trades for 20-year-old defenceman Connor Welsh and Marcoux.
Related read: Smoke Eaters complete trades
So are the Smoke Eaters a better team following the trade deadline?
“For sure,” said Tambellini. “You get a goaltender that’s coming out of the WHL that’s 9-1, and Luke Gallagher, that’s an offensive guy that can defend, and not give anything up.
“That’s the biggest point. What do you have to pay to acquire these players, and they (other teams) have leveraged what they are next year. The risk-reward of that is the hard part, and that’s where my General Manger’s hat comes on, I’m worried about building a team that can have sustainable success and that’s all going to return next year.”
With 12 of the Smoke Eaters final 13 matches against division rivals, Trail will look to improve its standing in the Interior Division in preparation for a playoff run. Yet, parity pervades the BCHL, this year more than ever, so getting hot at the right time may be the key to success.
“For us, with the group that we’ve built, and the changes we’ve had to make, it’s exciting because we know that if we peak at the right time, we’re going to have a chance to surprise some people. Whether we’re in fourth place, fifth, sixth or seventh, we’re going to be a tough out for somebody.”
Catch the Smokies vs Wild games on mixlr.com/trail-smoke-eaters as well as HockeyTV.com at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Toyota Town Centre.
sports@trailtimes.ca
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