The Lake Cowichan Kraken held leads in all three of their Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League games last weekend, but only one resulted in a victory as the club’s ups and downs continued.
The lone victory came in the Kraken’s last game of the week, a 4-2 win over the Comox Valley Glacier Kings in Courtenay on Saturday.
The Kraken were outshot 34-28, but Josh Robins — one of the league’s busiest goalies this year with 13 appearances in the team’s first 16 games — made 32 saves to earn the win.
The Glacier Kings opened the scoring just after the 15-minute mark of the first period, but defenceman Jacob Campbell evened things up less than a minute later. Aiden Eddy put the Kraken ahead with the lone goal of the second, and Rowan Zapisocki potted the eventual game-winner at 12:42 of the third. Comox got back within one, but Carter Anderson added some insurance for Lake Cowichan with an empty-netter.
Lake Cowichan’s own Richard Bergman had four points over the Kraken’s previous two games, but it wasn’t enough as they fell behind in the third periods of both contests.
The Kraken held 1-0 and 2-1 leads over the Bombers in Port Alberni on Wednesday, but surrendered the winning goal with 2:40 left in the third period to lose 4-3. Campbell opened the scoring just before the three-minute mark, the Bombers replied just over a minute later, but Bergman restored the Kraken’s lead at 17:38 of the opening frame. Alberni went ahead with two goals in the last two minutes of the first, but Julian Rutland tied things at 3-3 with the only goal of the second. The Bombers scored the game-winner with 2:40 left in regulation. Robins made 38 saves as the Kraken outshot the Bombers 38-36.
Bergman scored twice in the second period against the Predators in Saanich last Friday, and the Kraken held the lead until 13:14 of the third, when the Preds scored three straight powerplay goals to go ahead. Robins stopped 40 of 43 shots, while the Kraken fired just 18 pucks on the Saanich net.
Earlier last week, the Kraken acquired Duncan products Mitchell Billings and Brayden Ganter from the Nanaimo Buccaneers on Oct. 17 in exchange for the playing rights to Malcolm Fletcher, Oren Louie and Colton Carey.
Billings, a forward, was leading the Bucs with 11 points in 13 games prior to the trade, and earned an assist in his second game with the Kraken on Saturday. Ganter, a defenceman, had one assist in 13 games with Nanaimo and made his Lake Cowichan debut on Saturday. Fletcher had no points in five games with Lake Cowichan, Carey scored once in five appearances, and Louie didn’t play a game for the Kraken.
The Kraken will wrap up their lengthy slate of road games when they visit the Campbell River Storm this Friday, then return home to host the winless Buccaneers on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.