A long road trip may be just what the doctor ordered for Trail Smoke Eaters.
The Smoke Eaters look to end their six game losing streak when they embark on a three-games-in-three-days haul to Vancouver Island this weekend. Trail plays against the Victoria Grizzlies tonight, has a tilt against the Cowichan Valley Capitals on Saturday and skips back across the pond for a matchup versus the Surrey Eagles on Sunday.
“Any time you can bring a group closer together, and that’s what long road trips do, I think it’s the best thing that can happen to our group right now,” said Smoke Eaters head coach and GM Jeff Tambellini. “Going on the road for back-to-back-to-back, and our guys are just going to worry about getting close as a unit and finding ways to win … I think we’re going to have a great bounce-back weekend.”
The Smoke Eaters are eager for a win after earning just one point in their past six games and dropping to last place in the Interior Division with an 7-8-3-1 record. Trail blew leads in three of those losses, and was trailing by a goal or tied in four of them before the game was iced by an empty netter or in overtime.
“There’s no easy match ups,” said Tambellini. “You look at the way the games go, it’s tight. Even our games where we won are tight games and the games we’re losing, so it’s a coin flip every night.
“There’s going to be a shuffle going on throughout the entire division. We were in first place two Saturdays ago, now we’re in seventh, but we’re only six points out of first.”
Trail’s toughest test will come Friday night against the Island Division leading Grizzlies at 12-7-0-1. Victoria’s biggest asset is last season’s Rookie of the Year, Alex Newhook, who has amassed 11 goals and 30 points this season, 10 of those coming on the power play.
Newhook sits in second in BCHL scoring, while linemate Alex Campbell has added nine goals and 25 points to date. This week’s BCHL Player of the Week, Carter Berger, leads all league defencemen with 23 points and is a University of Connecticut commit. The Grizzlies also boast one of the league’s best goalies in Kurtis Chapman. The Airdrie native has played 17 of 20 games with a 2.23 goals against average, and a .944 save percentage. He faces an average of 38 shots per game and is a big reason for the Grizzlies’ success this season.
Trail then faces two teams, Cowichan and Surrey, with the two worst records in the league.
The Smokies beat the Capitals 6-4 in their visit to Trail on Oct. 12 in a come-from-behind victory. The Mike Vandekamp coached team played the Chilliwack Chiefs tight in their last game and led 2-1 in the second period before falling 3-2, with penalties eventually costing Cowichan. The 4-13-1-1 Capitals are the most penalized team in the league with 367 pims, compared to 199 for Trail. The Caps also traded 20-year-old veteran defenceman Marshall Skapski to the Melfort Mustangs of the SJHL on Wednesday for futures, leaving a fairly sizeable hole in their backend.
The 6-15-0-0 Surrey Eagles are also a bit of an enigma. The Eagles have the league’s leading scorer in Ty Westgard (8-23-31), yet, have the most losses in the league, 15. The Eagles defence and goaltending has been suspect, with the league’s most goals against, 90, combined with poor special teams (14.6 per cent power play and 78.6 per cent PK), have contributed to their rough start.
Logistically, November will be the toughest month for the Smoke Eaters with 12 games scheduled and seven of those on the road. Last season, Trail boasted a 19-5-1-0 record on Nov. 18 to lead the BCHL, but injuries hurt them, and the Smokies quickly fell back to earth, going 10 straight games without a win.
This year’s team was plagued by injury early with the loss of Spencer McLean, Owen Ozar, and Hayden Rowan. But November is looking up for the Smoke Eaters with all its players off the injury list and back in the line up.
“For the first time (this season) we have a 23-man roster that is full - and it only took 10 weeks,” added Tambellini.
Trail made some big moves this past month, dealing Sean Donaldson to the Prince George Spruce Kings for Layne Sniher, and signed Max Kryski from the WHL P.G. Cougars. The Smokies sent Levi Glasman to the Powell River Kings in a three-way deal for defenceman Powell Conner of the Chilliwack Chiefs.
The addition of a high-end defenceman with a track record of winning, along with two dynamic forwards will eventually pay dividends, but the process takes time, says Tambellini, and he isn’t hitting the panic button yet.
“We like our process, we like our group, and we had over 300 games experience come back into our lineup on Friday. We’re not the first team to go 0-5-0-1 in a six game stretch … We just have to refocus, reset, and go back to work.”
Trail plays Victoria tonight (Friday) at the Q Centre at 7 p.m., Cowichan Saturday at 6 p.m., and Surrey Sunday at 4 p.m.
Join the Voice of the Smoke Eaters, Trevor Miller, broadcast each game live on mixlr.com/trail-smoke-eaters or watch it on HockeyTV.com.