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Coach hopes Caps are learning

Kevin Rothbauer - Cowichan Valley Citizen
October 28, 2009

There was visible improvement between the Cowichan Valley Capitals' performances on Friday and Sunday, but with two more losses in the books, coach Dale Purinton knows there is a lot more work to do.

"Being prepared to play and not making those little errors are important," he said following a 5-0 defeat by the Penticton Vees and a 5-2 loss to the Westside Warriors, both at home, on the weekend. "Coming out and playing 60 minutes means a lot of things."

As the second- and third-place teams in the Interior Conference, Penticton and Westside are well ahead of the Caps in the standings, and Purinton hopes his team took some lessons away from those games.

"You can learn from playing against teams like them," he said. "Hopefully they're taking things out of that."

Although his team consists largely of rookies, Purinton -- who now has two wins and two losses in his four games behind the bench -- won't use that as an excuse.

"People tend to use that too much," he said. "Whether your a younger team or an older team, it's the same league. Young or old, you still have to play every day."

The line of Denver Manderson, Beau Bennett and Garrett Milan, arguably the best trio in the British Columbia Hockey League, combined for six points against the Caps on Friday, while netminder Sean Bonar stopped all 26 shots that he faced. Cowichan's Alexandre Peck, meanwhile, turned aside 28 of the 33 shots directed at his goal.

"Obviously that's a pretty good team in Penticton," said Purinton. "A team you can't beat when you make little mistakes against them. As soon as you do, they'll capitalize on them. It still wasn't a 5-0 games, but our team played poorly."

The effort was better against Westside, he allowed.

"We outshot them by a bunch (36-22), and it was a 3-2 game until we got into penalty trouble," he said. "Both teams were in the box, and that takes the momentum out of the game. I feel we played a lot better, but we're still not doing enough to win."

Defenceman Brett Apted had Cowichan's opening goal against Westside -- his first as a Capital -- and helped set up the second, Taylor Paziuk's fourth of the season. Peck made 17 saves on 22 shots, but was outdone by opponent Kevin Jebson, who stopped 34 of the Caps' 36 shots.

Up next is Peck's former team, the Victoria Grizzlies, to whom the Caps will play host at The Stick 7:30 p.m. on Saturday.

"Divisional games are big games, and this will be a huge contest," said Purinton. "Our guys will be excited. I haven't seen Victoria yet, but from what I know, I think we can compete against them. We need to be emotionally ready."