The powerplay, penalty kill and goaltending were all working well for the Cowichan Valley Capitals last weekend, but the B.C. Hockey League team was still unable to earn a win during a three-game road trip.
The trek began with a 4-1 loss to the Trail Smoke Eaters on Friday, followed by a 3-2 loss to the West Kelowna Warriors on Saturday, and wrapped up on Sunday afternoon with a 7-2 defeat at the hands of the Langley Rivermen.
“One of the bright spots on the weekend was that our special teams were pretty good,” Capitals head coach Brian Passmore noted.
The return of Azzaro Tinling after an eight-game absence helped spark a powerplay that scored in every game, while the Caps killed off 16 of 18 shorthanded situations. Goalie Adam Marcoux also had an excellent weekend, although playing seven of the first eight periods of the weekend wore him down.
Marcoux made a remarkable 47 saves on Friday as the Caps were outshot 51-20 by the Smoke Eaters, an outing Passmore called “one of the best goalie performances I’ve seen from any goalie in this league all year.”
The Smokies were up 2-0 before Tinling struck on the powerplay at 13:23 of the second. That was all the offence the Caps would create, however, and Trail added two more in the third.
The Caps spent much of the evening shorthanded, but killed off 10 of the 11 penalties they were assessed.
“I haven’t really complained about the reffing this year,” commented Passmore, whose team has averaged more penalty minutes per game than anyone else in the league. “But I thought they were a little harsh on us.”
Two mistakes early in the third period on Saturday led to goals that the Caps were unable to overcome.
“That was a tough loss,” Passmore said. “I liked our response to Friday night. Not coming away with two points was very disappointing.”
The Warriors opened the scoring, but Ty Pochipinski evened things up late in the first with his sixth of the season. Tinling notched another powerplay goal in the second to give the Caps the lead, but West Kelowna scored at 1:09 and 1:34 of the third to pull back in front, where they stayed for good, fending off intense pressure by the Caps after they pulled Marcoux for the last 72 seconds of the game.
Although Yann Dery started the game in net, he came out for precautionary reasons after stopping 15 of 16 shots in the first 20 minutes. Marcoux came in for the rest of the game and stopped 24 of 26 shots.
The Caps came out strong on Sunday afternoon and traded chances with the Rivermen in the first period, getting a goal from Raphael Gosselin as the teams went to the dressing room knotted at 1-1. Langley scored three in the second and three more in the third, though, before Brendan Cherwalk scored Cowichan’s second of the day.
Marcoux started, but came out late in the second after allowing four goals on 25 shots. He was replaced by affiliate J.J. Pichette, who was called up from the junior B Kerry Park Islanders due to Dery’s injury, and stopped 14 of 17 shots.
Passmore liked the play of Pochipinski, Troy MacTavish and Marshall Skapski over the weekend as they kept busy backchecking, blocking shots and providing leadership.
“They were solid all weekend,” the coach said. “We had good efforts from a lot of other guys, but those guys stood out.”
The Caps have two home games this weekend as they host the Salmon Arm Silverbacks (eight wins, seven losses, one overtime loss and two ties) on Saturday at 7 p.m. and the Chilliwack Chiefs (7-7-1-1) on Sunday at 2 p.m.
Salmon Arm beat Cowichan 3-2 at the BCHL Showcase in Chilliwack last month, something Passmore hopes provides some inspiration, similar to what the Caps had as they sought revenge against the Wenatchee Wild earlier this month. Chilliwack got the season off to a slow start, but have picked things up recently as they’ve added some veterans in anticipation of hosting the RBC Cup.
Passmore still believes one win could drastically change his team’s fortunes.
“One thing going right could start it feeling like we’re going downhill instead of uphill,” he said.