The Dauphin Kings will not hit the ice in game action again until this Friday when they welcome the Neepawa Natives to town.
"These couple of days off will help us as we try and get a full lineup for Friday," said Interim Head Coach and GM of the Kings, Mitch Giguere. "We know Neepawa pretty well. I think we're faster than them, and we've proved that a couple times this year. We need to push the pace come Friday."
Despite two losses over the weekend, the Kings looked stellar on the penalty kill. On Friday night, the Kings went 4-4 against Portage on the PK and went 8-8 on Saturday against Winker. But, it wasn't a complete special teams effort as the Kings struggled heavily on the powerplay, scoring just one time in their 14 opportunities.
"Obviously our penalty kill did a really good job in both games," said Giguere. "This week is all about us. We need to start scoring on the powerplay, so we'll have a couple good days of practice, and be ready for Friday."
The Kings will enter this weekend's contest 17 points back of a playoff spot, and can at most pick up 34 more points this season if they win every game the rest of the way.
"We had a really good meeting with the whole team yesterday," said Giguere. "And as soon as I stopped talking, a player stood up and said guys, we need two points. Even if we don't make the playoffs, the guys know they want points and they want to win games. It was nice to see the guys coming together, and now we're going to try and achieve what we want."
The league's focus has switched over to the MJHL/SJHL Showcase which gets underway this afternoon in Regina. New King, Dustin Mozdzen is at the showcase, as well as Devin Atkin.
