The Cranbrook Bucks will look to win their fifth consecutive contest on Friday night when they start a two-game weekend road trip against the Warriors in West Kelowna. The trip will then conclude with the Bucks paying a visit to the Wenatchee Wild on Saturday evening.
Cranbrook pushed its win-streak to four games with back-to-back home wins last weekend — a 6-0 blanking of the Surrey Eagles on Friday, followed by a 3-2 nail-biter against the Langley Rivermen on Saturday.
The string of victories began two weeks ago in the very building the Bucks return to tonight when they handed the Warriors a 7-1 setback, before upending the Salmon Arm Silverbacks in a 4-3 shootout decision one night later.
In addition to seeking its fifth straight win overall, Cranbrook could sweep the five-game season series against the Warriors with a victory tonight. The Bucks are 4-0-0 in head-to-head meetings with West Kelowna this season, and 8-2-0 through the first 10 all-time matchups with the Warriors. Cranbrook is also 4-1-0 through its first five games played at Royal LePage Place in West Kelowna.
When the Bucks’ bus heads south of the border to battle Wenatchee on Saturday, they’ll be visiting a building that has been far less friendly to them historically.
Cranbrook took losses in four of its five trips to Wenatchee last season before suffering a 3-2 shootout setback and a 4-2 defeat in its first visits to Town Toyota Center this year on Feb. 17 and 18.
The Bucks will look to improve upon not only their 1-5-1 record in Wenatchee, but also a 2-3-1 mark against the Wild this season and a 5-8-1 record in 14 all-time head-to-head meetings.
Bucks by the numbers
Cranbrook currently owns a 34-13-3 record this season, which ranks second in the Interior Conference and third overall in the BC Hockey League. The Bucks have locked up second-place in the Interior which guarantees them home-ice advantage through the first two rounds of the playoffs should they advance that far.
After last weekend’s pair of wins at Western Financial Place in Cranbrook, the Bucks own a 20-3-1 record on home ice which ranks second in the league. They will look to improve upon their third-best road record in the BCHL this weekend, operating at a 14-9-2 clip as the visiting team so far this season. The current road trip will conclude Cranbrook’s away schedule for the regular season, before playing two more home games next weekend against the Prince George Spruce Kings.
The Bucks have scored the fourth-most goals in the BCHL with 182 and have given up the second-fewest with 124 for the second-best goal-differential at plus-58. On special teams, Cranbrook’s 82.8% penalty-kill rating ranks fifth in the league, while it’s 15.7% power-play is 17th overall.
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