It is a scenario few envisioned after a promising off-season and training camp: The Victoria Salmon Kings are off to their worst start in club history at 0-4.

Victoria netminder Glenn Fisher, who won two NCAA Frozen Four titles at the University of Denver, was outstanding on the night. But Fisher let in a stoppable outside shot by John de Gray at 16:58 of the third period for the winning goal as the Bakersfield

Condors, who also added an empty-netter at 19:59, left Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre with a 3-1 victory in the Salmon Kings’ 2009-10 ECHL home opener before 4,569 fans.

It was essentially a 2-1 loss, the third such setback the Salmon Kings have suffered in four games, two of those losses coming in the waning moments of regulation time.

“I’m not OK with the four losses but I’m OK with this group [of players],” said Salmon Kings GM and head coach Mark Morrison.

“We’ve played two really good teams [Alaska and Bakersfield]. This is nothing like last year or the season before. There are more AHL players in this league now and there is a high skill level and there are going to be a lot of close games like these. You have to win them.”

That’s not something the Salmon Kings have been able to do so far, as Victoria’s admittedly tricky array of stickhandlers have only produced six goals in four games.

“There is no question we haven’t found the chemistry yet,” said Morrison.

“The effort was there but again we didn’t get dirty enough. We might address that [toughness] issue.”

After the first 14 minutes, the shot clock read 11-0 for Victoria but the scoreline remained 0-0. The shots advantage was 16-5 and you could guess what was coming next. It’s uncanny how many times this happens in hockey, but the team outplayed during a stretch does the scoring. Bakersfield opened the scoring as Fisher pushed the puck into his own net during a Condors power play. The goal was awarded to Shawn Wellar.

It continued a trend in the early season where the Salmon Kings have held territorial mastery with

little to show for it.

Fisher came up big later in the second period in stopping former Victoria Grizzlies junior Adam Naglich on a penalty shot. He made several more bright saves as play levelled out with the Condors outshooting Victoria 13-9 in the second period and getting several quality chances that were thwarted by Fisher. He was equally good in the third period until de Gray’s winner.

“I put that [winning goal] on myself,” said Fisher, named second star. “It’s a save I should have made. We’ve lost three one-goal games now [counting yesterday’s essential one-goal loss], but it will come.”

In a game such as this, when all the fancy efforts seem to go awry, it’s the greasy goals that turn out so big, and the Salmon Kings finally got on the board at 12:33 of the third period on just such a goal by Adam Taylor.

“We’re obviously not scoring, so we’ve got to find a way to muck away and get the dirty goals,” said Taylor, the former Hurricanes draft pick out of Courtenay.

“There is enough grittiness and toughness on this team. The skill guys we’ve got have that grit. It shows in practice and it will start to show in the games. It’s always no fun to start 0-4 but we play 72 games for a reason. It’s a long season.”

Bakersfield was left scrambling when goaltender Justin Pogge, acquired in a trade by parent Anaheim after making his NHL debut last season for the Toronto Maple Leafs, was recalled to Portland, Maine, of the AHL just before the game. That meant the start went to Timo Pielmeier, who backstopped Germany in the 2008 and 2009 world junior championships.