Pleau's message gets through loud and clear as Oil Kings beat up on Cougars

February 7, 2010

 

 
Prince George, BC- Edmonton Oil Kings head coach Steve Pleau clearly wasn’t happy with his team after a disappointing loss to the Prince George Cougars on Friday night, and he wanted to send a message.

His team listened in a big way as they dominated from start to finish in a 5-2 victory Saturday night over Prince George.

Cameron Maclise, Robin Soudek, Garry Nunn, Sebastian Svendesen and T.J. Foster all scored in the victory. Nick Buonassisi and Parker Stanfield replied for the Cougars.

Torrie Jung made 19 saves for his eighth win of the season as they outshot the Cougars 40-21.

The victory marked the first Oil Kings road win since Nov.14 with a 3-2 win over the Prince Albert Raiders.

“It was a long time coming, that’s for sure,” said a relieved Pleau after the game.

“That is a complete effort for us. We had a great start and a great first period.

“Greener (Oil Kings General Manager Bob Green) and I have been talking and we have a really young team, and sometimes saying some things 100 times isn’t enough, you may have to say it 101.

“We need to keep banging the fundamentals into them, and we were rewarded tonight.”

Maclise opened the scoring for the Oil Kings with a gritty second effort just 58 seconds into the game.

Edmonton outshot the Prince George 18-7 in the first period, but they found themselves tied 1-1 after Buonassisi beat Jung through traffic late in the first period.

The late Cougars goal didn’t get the Oil Kings down and they continued to put all kinds of pressure on Prince George goaltender Austin Stremmel in the second period.
Stremmel was doing his best to keep the Cougars in it, but just as it looked like the game was going to head into the third period all tied up at 1-1, the Oil Kings struck for four goals in a span of 2:06.

“We stuck with it mentally,” explained Pleau.

“When you are all over them and you come out of the first period 1-1, it can be really hard on a team, but we didn’t let it bother us.

“We had that two minute span where we got pucks to the net, and we finally started to see all our hard work pay off.”

After a very difficult month of January, the Oil Kings are finally starting to see a lot of positives in their game.

After making a trio of trades prior to and at the Jan.10 trade deadline, the Oil Kings are really starting to see the dividends of some of their newest acquisitions.

One Oil King who has really turned it on as of late is Svendsen, who has been a big jolt of energy since coming over from the Vancouver Giants.

The smooth skater from Denmark notched his third goal in his last four games. He notched an assist and completed the Gordie Howe hat-trick after dropping the mitts with Cougars defenceman Petr Senkerik early in the third period.

“He’s been excellent and he plays the game with a lot of energy,” added Pleau.
 
“He’s having fun playing, and that is translating on the score-sheet. He’s done a great job for us.”
 
Edmonton finished off their three-game B.C. road trip with three of a possible six points, and the team is starting to get rewarded with some strong efforts.
 
Their power play scored for the second straight game, and they got goals from all four lines in the victory.
 
“That is the type of effort we need to see on a nightly basis. We got a lot of pucks on net, we crashed the net and we worked for our chances,” said Pleau.

“It was a good road trip, we were able to build on a lot of positives and we can continue to move forward.”

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