Pastachak and Kings defeat Vikings, earn four weekend points

Brent Forster - RDC

Red Deer, AB – Good teams find a way to win. The RDC Kings faced a hungry University of Alberta Augustana Vikings team Saturday evening and despite killing a late penalty, the Kings found a way to lock down a 5-4 home victory.

The Vikings struck early. Evan Warmington found space behind Kings goalkeeper Nathan Alalouf only 33 seconds into the rematch.

It didn't take long for the home team to respond. In just over a span of one minute, RDC's Lynnden Pastachak and Kyle Salaway beat Vikings goaltender Zach deGraves.

The flurry of goals continued at 3:28 when Augustana's Cody Fiala knotted the game 2-2.

Ryan Groom provided the visitors with a 3-2 lead at 4:18 of the middle frame. Before the end of the period the Kings would jump ahead. At 10:44, Ross Heidt set up Tyrell Mappin and then Jacob Wozney pushed the home team ahead 4-3.

At 4:56 of the third, Lynnden Pastachak struck again, with an important insurance goal. That marker proved to be crucial as Travis Mayan pulled the Vikings within one with less than six minutes remaining. 

Zach deGraves was pulled for the extra skater with 42 seconds remaining, but the Vikings couldn't find the equalizer. The RDC Kings picked up a 5-4 victory.

"Yesterday we had a really poor start. We were outshot 13-8 in the first on the road. The guys were a little bit slow. It was mostly decision making and a lot of passes that were not tape-to-tape that ended up being turnovers. We played really well in the second and third periods and pushed, and came from 1-0 down to winning 3-1," says Head Coach Trevor Keeper.

"Tonight, we played well at the start, built a lead and did what we needed to do. Some mental errors again in the third period that made it a little closer than necessary."

Despite killing off all four of Augustana's chances with the man advantage on Saturday, and six on Friday, the Kings want to reduce the Vikings' opportunities in the next series.

"We only had three power plays and we let them have four. They are good on the power play and that's the kind of game that they want to get you into is a battle of special teams," says Keeper. "The next time that we play them, we will have to be more disciplined and not allow them to have ten power plays in two games."

Keeper praised the Kings penalty killing unit. 

"In four regular season games so far this year, we are 100 per cent," he says. "Guys like Jacob Wozney, Kyle Salaway, Austin Hunter, Scott Ferguson, and all of our defencemen killing penalties, they really picked the team up on their shoulders this weekend."

The Kings tested deGraves 36 times. Alalouf faced 35 shots.

Lynnden Pastachak was named the Collegiate Sports Medicine Kings Player-of-the-Game with a couple of goals. Evan Warmington had two points and received the honour for the Vikings.

Next week, the Red Deer College Kings (3-0-1-0) will face the NAIT Ooks (4-0-0-0) in a home-and-home series. It will be a battle for first place. 

"We will be up there on Thursday and back here Saturday. We will be one point behind them because of our double overtime loss, but it's the head-to-head games this coming week which will probably be the biggest two games this semester," says Keeper. 

"They are big and strong and are really good with little things like face-offs and one-on-one battles. In terms of speed and skill, we are evenly matched. We might be a little bit faster but they have skilled guys, and they have really solid goaltending. It will be a really good series this weekend."