The song remains the same for the West Kelowna Warriors – lose the special teams battle, lose a game.
The Warriors gave up two power-play goals and came up dry on their five opportunities in a 3-2 loss to the Penticton Vees Tuesday at Royal LePage Place.
West Kelowna jumped out to a 2-0 lead before the game was seven minutes old on a pair of goals from Jordon Masters but a missed opportunity with a brief five-on-three power-play opened the door for the Vees.
Paul Stoykewych got the visitors on the board on Penticton's first odd-man advantage late in the first, then Ben Dalpe got the equalizer on their second power-play chance midway through the second.
Brad McClure scored what stood up as the winner 2:28 into the third when his backhand from the bottom of the circle on an innocent looking rush beat Warriors netminder Andy Desautels.
The Warriors didn't get any quality chances the rest of the way.
Special teams have been the Warriors’ Achilles Heel all season long.
Warriors Coach Rylan Ferster says the struggles haven't been for lack of effort.
"We spend a lot of time on it. I've said before special teams come down to coaching but it's certainly not because we haven't put a lot of time and a lot of effort into it," says Ferster.
"As a staff we have so I don't want to throw anybody under the bus. It's unfortunate right now."
Masters who plays quality minutes on the power-play says he doesn't believe the players are getting frustrated.
"I think we go out there and we try to work hard but I think a few little things are off on our units and I think practice needs to be a little bit better and we need to work a little bit harder," says Masters.
"I think right now we have a few guys that are going off on their own but I think as a team we need to change that and I think we'll be rewarded down the road."
Masters got the Warriors going in the right direction early. He grabbed a rebound off David Pope's shot, took his time and roofed a shot over a fallen Hunter Miska.
Less than two minutes later off a face-off to Miska's right Masters and center Seb Lloyd worked a set piece to perfection as Lloyd tapped the puck forward to Masters who cut to the front of the net and out waited to put the Warriors up 2-0.
Masters says the set play was called at the last minute after the Vees changed their face-off set up.
"He just said I'm pushing it right through – go to the back post and that's exactly how it went."
After the late power-play goal in the first the Vees carried all the momentum into the middle frame, one in which they dominated throughout.
"I don't think we had a lot of push back when they came at us," says Ferster.
"You want to give them credit, they're a good team, they play the same way every night. We knew how they were going to play but again I didn't think we had the kind of push back we needed."
The loss was the Warriors sixth in nine games in November, dropping their record over the month to 2-6-1-0.
They remain tied with Salmon Arm for fourth in the Interior Division with 31 points, three behind third-place Merritt and four in back of the second-place Vernon Vipers.
The Warriors again try to right the ship Saturday when they say goodbye to November against the Langley Rivermen at Royal LePage Place.
Dive deeper at The General’s Report.
