They were just the third and fourth games of this Western Hockey League season for the Victoria Royals. But they stuck in head coach Dave Lowry’s craw like a small fish bone caught between the teeth.
Undrafted 20-year-olds Mitch Holmberg, with three goals and eight points, and Mike Aviani, with four goals and seven points, lit up the Royals like a bonfire in back-to-back 6-2 and 6-1 victories by the Spokane Chiefs at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
Outside the Royals dressing room following the second game of that set, Lowry recalls overhearing one Victoria fan saying to another: “Boy, it’s going to be a long season here.”
It was, in the sense all hockey seasons are long. But not in the way those fans envisioned. September and March are like two different planets in hockey. Yes, Holmberg went on to win both the WHL goals and points scoring crowns with 62 and 118, respectively, and Aviani finished with 38 goals and 81 points.
But the Royals went on to have a franchise-record shattering season with 48 victories and 100 points to finish ranked in the Canadian Hockey League top-10 poll for the first time in history.
Victoria (48-20-4) is the third seed in the tough Western Conference and opens the 2014 playoffs tonight and Sunday at the Memorial Centre with the first two games of the best-of-seven series against the sixth-seed Chiefs (40-26-6).
Royals checking forwards Logan Fisher and Taylor Crunk may not have the sexiest jobs on the team, but they probably have the most important ones in keeping tabs on Holmberg and Aviani. While the Royals had a Western Conference-best and WHL second-best 181 goals allowed this season, Holmberg (four goals and 12 points) and Aviani (four goals and 10 points) managed to break through the Victoria defence in the four head-to-head matchups as Spokane went 3-1 against Victoria. The Chiefs also got production out of their defensive corps, with blueliners Reid Gow and Jason Fram accumulating 56 and 51 points this season, respectively.
“We know they have big offensive guys. So we have to stick to our systems and our game plan every night,” said Fisher, who like Crunk, has been suffocating in his defensive coverage this season.
“I trust in my teammates. We have been a tight group all year and are like a family. We know we have to play well together in order to do well. We know it’s going to take more than one line to shut them [Holmberg and Aviani] down.”
That team approach has been instrumental in the success this season of a Royals team that didn’t have one player in the top-30 of WHL scoring but had six players with 20 or more goals and nine players with 30 or more points.
The intangibles also become important in the playoffs. Victoria was defeated in the first round of the playoffs the last two seasons by Kamloops Blazers teams that simply did not believe they would lose to the lower-ranked Royals. It was a kind of swagger that bordered on arrogance.
A higher seed needs that belief in itself without it becoming self-destructive. Hubris is a dangerous thing in sports.
Yet that doesn’t seem to be in the DNA of this Royals team. They are confident but quietly so. This is a remarkably mature group who realize this journey could last until May. Or it could be over as soon as Game 4 next Thursday.
“We have to be disciplined and capitalize on our opportunities,” said Victoria forward Steven Hodges, a talented Florida Panthers prospect.
Lowry said what he wants to see “controlled emotion” out of his team.
It doesn’t concern him that the Royals are backing into the playoffs with three consecutive losses to end the regular season.
“Not at all, because I thought we played well in those final three games despite the losses. The final game of the season [a 3-2 loss in Everett to the Silvertips] came down to one bad bounce at the end of the game,” said Lowry.
A problem from bygone years — inopportune penalties — did, however, rear its head again down the stretch.
“Discipline is a fine line in the playoffs,” noted Lowry.
“You have to get to the line without crossing it.”
The Chiefs recorded their sixth 40-or-more wins season in the past seven years. Spokane has been a model of consistency, managing to avoid those peaks and valleys that seem inherent to major-junior hockey.
Meanwhile, goaltending is always crucial in the playoffs and Victoria looks to be set with Patrik Polivka (2.56 goals-against average in 43 appearances) and Coleman Vollrath (2.29 GAA in 34 appearances), as solid a duo as any in the WHL this season. Lowry did not say who will draw the starting assignment tonight.
The Chiefs answer with veteran 20-year-old workhorse Eric Williams (2.67 GAA in 58 games), who has appeared in 24 career WHL playoff games.
