The Wheatland Kings (3-1-1) are looking every bit like the fast paced, exciting young team GM Lee Smith expected before the season began. Win or lose, this is a team that plays hard and puts points on the board, and that was on full display this weekend.

The weekend started on the road against the Three Hills Thrashers on Friday night, where the Kings earned a 4-1 victory, with one of the goals being an empty-netter. Smith's expectations for the team are quite high, so even in a solid victory he's still looking for ways the team can improve.

"We played well, we played all right. We were happy with the win. It wasn't the best game that they played all year, but they did play well enough to win so we were happy with that," he said.

 One area Smith hopes to see improvement is penalties.

"We're probably leading the league in penalty minutes right now and that's starting to affect us a bit and we're just going to tighten that up. Against the top teams, if you're in the penalty box the whole time you're in trouble and as a young team we need to figure that out."

While the score doesn't show it, the shots on net were 35-34 for the Kings, which shows how well goalie Rhett Harten played. Combined with Landen Brassard, Smith has a lot of confidence in the goalie duo.

"Rhett played very well, he kept us in it actually. He's had two starts and he's played very well. Brassard is the other goaltender and he's played well this year too. With the goaltending, there are no concerns there at all. We are very happy with the tandem that we have and they're both playing very well." 

While the season has been going well, the Kings, unfortunately, have yet to earn a win at home, as they dropped the following game on Saturday 3-2 in overtime to the Rocky Rams.

"It was just a tough way to lose, losing in overtime after the guys played their hearts out. They played well but sometimes with growing you gotta go through that kind of stuff, right?"

The Kings held a 2-1 lead at the end of the first but unfortunately wouldn't score the rest of the game. Smith said the team can take this loss as an opportunity to learn how to put games away and take advantage of the opportunities you're given. He added the Rams' goalie also had a stellar night and was the difference maker in a game where the Kings outshot them 33-24.

The Kings will hit the road again for their Friday night game against the Mountain View Colts, before coming back home to host the Okotoks Bisons at 8:00 PM on Saturday.

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