While many would say that a hard fought 2-1 loss to Dauphin is a good sign for The Neepawa Natives - particularly following the lopsided loss in Dauphin on Friday night - Coach Bryant Perrier will not be taking any comfort in the seemingly evenly matched game.

 

"We did not get the job done, and that is the only goal when you play the game," offered the coach, after watching his club hold Dauphin to 25 shots, and less than a handful of quality scoring chances. "We did not get the win and that is what we wanted."

 

The teams played even for much of the game, and appeared to be heading into the second intermission tied, before a late period goal gave the Kings a 2-1 lead - a lead they held for the remainder of the game.

 

Perrier believes that his team will have to improve in the areas of drive and tenacity.

 

"This comes down to the will of our men, and how bad they want to accomplish their goals," he said. "Our will to win is going to need to be better and we need to be more tencacious. We need to be explosive in our pursuit of pucks and getting to rebounds."

 

Despite holding the highly explosive Kings to only two goals, Perrier is more concerned with his own club's desire to produce hard to score goals.

 

"We had pucks laying around in the blue, we had chances to get pucks to the net, we had chances to advance the puck up ice, and for some reason we chose to play horizontally and laterally."

 

According to the coach, this will have to change.

 

"We tried to do too much, but then we really fell short in the simple things. Things we normally do well, we didn't do."

 

Even with a disappointing effort on the evening, Perrier says the plan is still the same.

 

"We had to win one for sure in their building," he said. "Obviously, that is the next step. The logical pursuit now is to focus on immediately stealing one in a tough Dauphin arena."

 

The coach says that Dauphin is very deserving of the victory.

 

"They played a very good game tonight. They caught us when we just weren't going the way we needed to be and they stepped up their game. We would have needed to be great to beat them and we were mediocre."

 

"We lost a great opportunity to tie the series up by not being our best."