It wasn’t the start Prince George needed. Fourteen seconds into the hockey game, and they trailed 1-0 courtesy of Spruce King-killer Dakota Raabe. Matthew Baker came down the right side, and centred for Raabe who was all alone in fornt of the net. Making no mistake, he opened the scoring, and scored his 9th goal overall against PG in the last two seasons.
1:47 in Jasper Weatherby doubled the score shovelling the puck in for the 2-0 Wenatchee lead. Hunter Luhmann from the Spruce Kings came close to getting his team within one a few minutes later, but was unable to cash in. On a two-on-one, Tyler Anderson fed the puck across from the wall, and Luhmann in front of the net had time to put a few dekes on Devin Cooley. The netminder who came in with a two game shutout streak was up to the task stopping the Prince George forward point blank. Charlie Combs would make Prince George pay for not scoring at 11:44 as he was able to make it 3-0 for Wenatchee. The goal was his 40th of the season, and 8th against Prince George. The shots after one read 17-6 for the Wild with neither team earning a power play.
Wenatchee started the second similar to the first as Troy Conzo made it 4-0 at 1:33. Coming off the right wing, he took a sharp angled shot that just caught a piece of Tavin Grant and rolled into the net. The Spruce Kings would hit the board 14:59 in as it was Chong Lee taking advantage of an errant clearing attempt from Devin Cooley. Cooley raced out of his net to play the puck, but fanned on it allowed Lee to shot the puck into the empty cage. Charlie Combs answered a minute later for his second of the game with another shot off the right squeezing past Grant.
With over a minute to play, Ben Brar moved the puck up to the Spruce Kings blueline, and spotted Brett Mennear on the far side. A saucer pass later and the captain was down for a breakaway. Going upstairs he was able to beat Cooley making the game 5-2 with 1:16 to play. The assist was Ben Brar’s 14th point in his 20th game with Prince George. As a member of the Penticton Vees he had 13 points in 76 games.
The third was much less eventful with just one goal being scored. That came off the stick of Combs as he took advantage of a defensive blunder stealing the puck, and again tucking a shot near side on Grant. The hat-trick was the fourth of the season for Combs who leads the league in goals with 42 in 44 games.
With the loss, Prince George drops to 1-11-1-0 against the Wenatchee all-time. The two will faceoff once again tomorrow in the Town Toyota Center with puckdrop at 7 p.m.
-Prince George Spruce Kings
