Weekend Preview: Selkirk, TWU battle for first in weekend series

Top spot in the B.C. Intercollegiate Hockey League standings is on the line this weekend when Trinity Western University travels east to face Selkirk College in a pair of games at the Castlegar Recreation Complex.

The Spartans took over first place last weekend with a sweep of Eastern Washington while an idle Saints squad watched on. It was the first time since the middle of October that TWU held a points lead on the four-time league champions.

The Saints will have three new players ready to make their BCIHL debuts this weekend in forward Logan Styler, defenceman Cole Arcuri and netminder Tallon Kramer.

Styler is the defending Kootenay International Junior Hockey League scoring champ while Arcuri has 66 games of BCHL experience and Kramer led the Beaver Valley Nitehawks to a Provincial Junior B championship last season.

That trio joins an already strong nucleus that posted an 11-2-0-1 record in 14 games before the league's winter break.

The Saints will hope that team captain and league scoring leader enjoys putting the puck in the net as much in 2018 as he did a year ago. The 23-year old holds an 11-point lead on his closest competition for the BCIHL points lead and his 30 points to date mean that he's been in on nearly half of his team's 63 goals.

While the Spartans may not have a skater who comes close to matching Calvin's 2.1 points per game, they do boast four of the next five spots on the top scorer's list. Brayden Brown leads the way with 19 points while Kade Vilio and Evan Last (18) and Brandon Potomak (17) are close behind.

While the Saints have already received outstanding goaltending from the duo of Brett Huber and Patrick Zubick, they may have picked up a potential gamebreaker in Kramer. The 21-year old was nearly unbeatable with the Nitehawks last season, posting a 1.81 goals-against average and .935 save-percentage over 35 appearances. He also picked up all 16 of his team's playoff wins in capturing the KIJHL championship.

Selkirk will hope that whichever goalie plays can match Spartans starter Silas Matthys. The fifth-year Swiss product has a league-best eight wins and stopped 31 of 33 shots when TWU topped the Saints by a 3-2 score in Langley on November 17th.

TWU (12-3-0-0) enters weekend play up one point in the standings, but Selkirk (11-2-0-1) holds a game in hand. While the battle for first plave is likely to come down to the final weekends of the regular season, a series sweep of Friday and Saturday's games would provide a huge head start.

Both match-ups are set for 7:00 PM puck drops and can be streamed live on Hockey TV.