King, the Moose Jaw Warriors 18-year-old defenceman, rolled to a 5-2 victory over Kyrell Sopotyk of the Kamloops Blazers in the first round of the Canadian Hockey League Memorial eCup on Saturday afternoon.
The 64-team tournament features all 60 CHL teams and four special guests battling through a single-elimination event through to the best-of-three championship final. All games are played on the PlayStation 4 version of the wildly popular NHL 21 video game from EA Sports.
All games are broadcast on the Twitch video game broadcasting channel.
King controlled the contest essentially from start to finish, taking a 1-0 lead out of the first period and leading 2-1 through two. The score wasn’t indicative of the flow of the game, though, as King was able to dominate nearly all aspects, outshooting Sopotyk 22-10 and having more than two minutes more on the attack.
That was certainly helped by the penalty situation, as the Warriors finished 2-for-5 on the man advantage compared to the Blazers going 0-for-3.
In his post-game interview, King pointed to a common and simple strategy as one of his keys to success.
“The hard work paid off and the back-door goals were working best, as per usual,” he said.
Ryder Korczak scored twice and added an assist in the game and was the planned go-to player for King throughout the contest.
“Oh yeah, as soon as you get the puck on Korzy’s stick it’s pretty much game over there,” King said with a laugh.
Calder Anderson added a goal and an assist while Eric Alarie and Brad Ginnell also scored for the Warriors. Cade Hayes picked up a pair of helpers.
Connor Zary and Reese Belton scored for Kamloops.
King felt he had a bit of a leg up on Sopotyk via some pre-game scouting, thanks to a former teammate and member of the Regina Pats, traditionally the Warriors’ arch-rivals.
“I talked to some buddies and got a scouting report from Carson Denomie, he might have given me the upper hand there,” King said, adding that current Warriors teammates and players from around the league were also happy to pass on tips and tricks.
Denomie, who played for Moose Jaw during parts of the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons, lost his first-round match Carter Murchison of the QMJHL’s Rouyn-Noranda Huskies earlier in the week.
King will now advance to the second round and will face Jaylen Luypen of the Edmonton Oil Kings after Luypen defeated Majid Kaddoura of the Prince George Cougars in their first round match-up later Saturday.
Be sure to follow the Memorial eCup on Twitter for the latest results from the event.
