The only thing standing in the way of a weekend sweep against the Langley Rivermen was Braedon Fleming.
Less than 24 hours after getting pumped 8-1 against the Prince George Spruce Kings on Friday, Fleming put up a 37-save performance as the Rivermen earned a tight-checking 2-1 result from the Rolling Mix Concrete Arena.
Jake Livingstone opened the scoring for Langley on the power-play beating Spruce Kings netminder Bradley Cooper for a 1-0 lead.
After Fleming made a number of glove saves to preserve the lead, Langley jumped out by a pair after Cooper lost his stick and allowed a Trevor Ayre goal through the wickets double the visitors advantage six minutes into the middle frame.
Nick Bochen scored with less than a minute left in the game for the Spruce Kings ripping a point shot over the shoulder of Fleming cutting the deficit to 2-1.
“After the game yesterday I don’t think we were expecting them to bounce back like that and we just weren’t ready for it,”
Spruce Kings captain Ben Poisson agreed with the young defenceman who refused to give all the credit to the opposing netminder.
“Obviously we ran into a hotter goalie but we can’t put it all on that, we had a lot of chances that we could have scored on and I don’t know if we thought it would be easier or we just didn’t bear down and get it done because something wasn’t right.”
Prince George drops to 15-7-1-0 on the season and remain tied for second place in the Mainland Division with the Coquitlam Express and remain three back of the Chilliwack Chiefs for top spot.
An Island Division road trip awaits the Spruce Kings next weekend with stops in Powell River (Friday), Alberni Valley (Saturday) and Nanaimo (Sunday).
-Spruce Kings
