In a night where Baron Thompson scored his first goal as a Dauphin King in his first game, the Kings held on to beat the Neepawa Natives, 2-1 at Credit Union Place.
The win wraps up the preseason for Dauphin, who went 4-2 and the last three games have resulted in a win.
"I thought the game was okay. I thought we were a little sluggish at times," said Mitch Topinka, assistant coach. "We're just moving forward now and we'll have a hard week of practices leading up to next weekend's regular-season opener."
After no goals were scored in the first 30 minutes, the 6'5" American scored his first of the season. On an end-to-end rush, Thompson wrapped around the net and walked up to the circle and fired a shot bar down past Dylan Arnold to put Dauphin up 1-0.
Thompson was paired with Austin Lamotte and Nakodan Greyeyes.
"We had a lot of shots and we got the two points. We have some things we need to fix up and we'll get tighter as the group as things go on," said Thompson. "I thought our line played really well. We just need to build some more chemistry and I think games will be less stressful in the end."
Nearly seven minutes later at the 17:30 mark, Neepawa tied things up. The goal was scored on the powerplay as the score was 1-1 after 40.
The game stayed tied with less than six minutes left. At the 14:50 mark, just like Baron's end-to-end goal, this time it was Grady Hobbs turn. He completed a rush by going bar down past Arnold to give Dauphin a 2-1 lead, which they would hold.
Dauphin ended up with 36 shots while Neepawa had just 16.
32 players remain on the roster. That will trim down as the team prepares for their full week of practice.
"We definitely have some tough decisions ahead of us, which is a good thing," Topinka concluded. "Tonight made it tougher on us with some of the guys, they played well."
Dauphin will begin their regular season on Friday, September 20. Darnell Duff will have the call beginning with the Parkland Source for Sports pregame show at 7:00 p.m. The puck on the 2019-20 season drops at 7:30 from the Centennial Arena.
