DAUPHIN, MB - The Dauphin Kings gave up a handful of goals on the penalty kill and couldn't get rolling on their own power play in a 5-2 loss to the Portage Terriers Wednesday night.
In the opening period the Terriers would score just over two minutes in to take a 1-0 advantage. The Kings would get two man advantage opportunities in the first half of the frame but couldn't do anything with the chances. Portage would then get their first power play of the period and score on it to go ahead 2-0. Again the Kings would get a man advantage in the second half of the period but could not capitalize. The finished the period 0 for 3.
The second saw the Kings again a power play to start things off, but again they failed to score. Unfortunately for Dauphin their penalty kill was just as bad as their power play as the Terriers would make it 3-0 early in the second period, again on the man advantage. Matthew Thomas (10) would stop the bleeding for his club when he launched a seeing eye snap shot from the blue line to make it 3-1. The momentum was short lived as the Terriers would again score a power play goal to make it 4-1. Dauphin would get a full two minute 5 on 3 late in the period but again could not score and ended up 0 for 6 after 40 minutes.
In the third the Kings finally broke through on the power play. Matthew Thomas (11) notched his second of the night and Naaman Hofer grabbed his second assist to make it a 4-2 game. After that the Kings had some chances but they were too deep into a hole to complete the comeback and fell 5-2 with a Terriers empty netter late.
Cole Sheffield had an off night, he stopped 20 of 24 shots while his team had 44 shots.
As mentioned Special Teams were key in this game. Dauphin ended 1 for 8 on the power play and 2 for 5 on the penalty kill.
The loss drops the Kings to 22-9-1-0 on the season. They'll look to regroup Thursday and Friday and then return to Credit Union Place on Saturday when they welcome the Winnipeg Freeze to town to open up a quick two game home stand which concludes Tuesday against Swan Valley. Both games are 7:30pm starts.
#ForTheCrown
