FORT WILLIAM FIRST NATION – Darrin Nicholas says there’s never really a great time to take a bad penalty.
It’s really not a good idea to do it less than 20 seconds after scoring in the opening minute of the third period of your opening game of the Telus Cup Western Regional, having just cut your opponents lead in half.
But that’s precisely what the Thunder Bay Major Midget Kings did on Thursday night.
Down 2-0 after 50 minutes, forward Robert Tyska punched the puck past Winnipeg Wild goaltender Miles Minor 25 seconds into the third.
The momentum swing lasted all of 19 seconds.
That’s when Kings forward Jake Anttonen was assessed a four-minute minor for a check to the head. Shortly afterward Anthony Biniaris went off for hooking giving the Wild a full two-minute, two-man advantage.
The Kings managed to kill off the first of the two penalties, but with five seconds to go in the double minor, Winnipeg’s Matthew Shatsky ripped the rubber past Thunder Bay goalie Seth McKay for a 3-1 advantage.
Luc Benedictson added another midway through the third, giving the Wild a 3-1 win, already putting the Kings in a must-win situation on Friday when they take on Northwestern Ontario rival Kenora Thistles on Day 2 of the four-day tournament, being played at Fort William First Nation Arena.
“We talk about the time you cannot afford to put your team down and that time was when we made it 2-1 at the start of the third period and we proceeded to give them 10 minutes of power play time. There’s no way you win hockey games like that," said NIcholas, the Kings coach.
Tyska, knowing the Kings backs are against the wall, agreed.
“It’s just bad timing for everything. We got back in it, 2-1, and everything was just going our way it looked like. And then bad penalties at bad times took us out of it.”
Luckily, he added, the team really doesn’t have to adjust its approach moving forward, first against Kenora and then on Sunday against a powerhouse Notre Dame Hounds team that opened with an 11-0 win over the Thistles.
“We play every game hard as we should and every game is must-win in our books. We’ve just got to keep playing the way we know how to play and keep playing the way we win games.”
The Wild struck first midway through the opening stanza, when Kyle Bettens broke free on Smith, swept around him and deposited a backhander into the net for a 1-0 Winnipeg lead.
They’d add one more late in the second, Eric Fawkes making the perfect feed to Mitchell Joss on a two-on-one, Joss slipping it through McKay’s five-hole to double his team’s lead.
McKay stopped 27 of 31 shots fired his way, while counterpart Minor was good on all but one of the 18 Kings shots.
Bettens and Joss each finished with a goal and two assists.
Notes: The Kings and Thistles tangle Friday night at 8 p.m.
