PREVIEW – Smoke Eaters Look To Halt The Express
The Smoke Eaters close out their regular season home schedule with two out of conference matchups starting tonight as they host the Coquitlam Express.
Remaining Regular Season Games
Mar. 10 Coquitlam 7:00 pm PST
Mar. 11 Surrey 7:00 pm PST
Mar. 17 at Vernon 7:00 pm PDT
Mar. 18 at Vernon 6:00 pm PDT
Mar. 24 at Wenatchee 7:05 pm PDT
Mar. 25 at Wenatchee 6:05 pm PDT
The Smoke Eaters are hoping the worst of their injury and illness troubles are behind them as they head into the final three weeks of the season. The Smoke Eaters lineup was decimated last weekend with a mix of injuries and the flu running its course through the team. That being said the Smoke Eaters still managed four solid periods of hockey out of the six. Coming off the game on Saturday against the Vees the Smoke Eaters took it to the regular season champs in the first period jumping out to a 2-0 lead and shocking the boys in blue. But the Vees would slowly chip away, tying the game before the first was out, adding two more in the second and then sealing it in the third. The Smoke Eaters hope to have both Cobetto-Roy and Marshall full back in the lineup to solidify a second scoring trio for the Smokies, however the play of Potvin and Schenk over the weekend with Hunter is one Tim Fragle and company might not be so quick to break up, even though Hunter, Remissong and Parsons have been the go to option all season long and for good reason.
Smoke Eaters leading scorers:
Hunter (16-37-53)
Cobetto-Roy (11-25-36)
Remissong (15-19-34)
Bushy (6-26-32)
Parsons (12-17-29)
The Coquitlam Express come to town for the first time since February of 2020 and are coming off a two game split with the Surrey Eagles. The Express (24-16-4-3) come to Trail with points in 6 of their last seven games and wins in five of them, losing last Friday in a shootout to the Eagles, with their last regulation loss a 4-1 defeat to the Nanaimo Clippers. This is the Express’ second interior swing over the last few weeks as they made stops in Penticton and Wenatchee in mid February, losing both of those road games. After tonight they’ll head to West Kelowna to take on the Warriors. The Express are amongst the top half of the league on the powerplay this season with a 21% average over 162 attempts, while their penalty kill sits 16th just under 75%. Mateo Dixon leads the way for the Express with 45 points in 47 games.
Express leading scorers:
Dixon (22-23-45)
Kopff (19-25-44)
Buttazzoni (18-21-39)
Giesbrecht (17-14-31)
Gallucci (4-26-30)
The Smoke Eaters will look to stay in the hunt for seventh spot but they will need to pick up points tonight against the Express. Catch all the action on HockeyTV or listen on Mixlr.com. Tickets are still available for tonight’s game, skip the lines and buy your tickets ahead of time at Tickets.trailsmokeeaters.com