Kings season comes to close despite strong fight

by Stephen Dafoe

The Morinville Kings playoff season came to a close Sunday night after a 6-5 loss to the Devon Barons.

The Kings entered game five of a best-of-five series Sunday night needing the win. Tied at two games a piece, both teams came prepared to play for the win.

The Kings were tied 1-1 at the end of the the first period, which saw little in the way of strong action.

The middle frame saw the Kings trailing by one at 14:01 due to a power play goal. Just after the six minute mark, the Barons widened the gap to 3-1, and created a three-goal deficit for the Kings a minute later. But the Kings pushed on, picking up their second with 2:39 left in the frame.

Tied 25 shots apiece and trailing 4-2 entering the final period, the Kings needed desperately to capitalize on their chances better than they had in the first 40 minutes.

That chance came a minute and a half in when the Kings closed the gap to 4-3. But the gap opened and closed in the next two minutes to see the Kings trailing 5-4. A few seconds later the Kings tied it 5-5 and the packed Mac rejoiced.

But the Kings spent much of the period trying to even the score after the Barons pocketed their sixth.
Pulling their backstop in the final minute for an extra man did not give the Kings the much needed goal and the Kings followed Saturday night’s 4-3 loss with another one-goal deficit game.

Though the club was knocked out of the series so close to the final round of playoffs, they cn take pride in going so far in each of their first two season.

The Barons will now move on to face Westlock in the final series, et to begin next weekend.

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