The return to home ice is always a sigh of relief when a team is down and struggling on the road. Last Wednesday, March 11, the Victoria Salmon Kings finally returned home after a month-long road trip and used their home-crowd cheers to tear up the scoreboard and end a five-game losing streak.

The four-game series, held last weekend against the Pacific Division-leading Ontario Reign from Southern California, showed how the Victoria Salmon Kings use the energy from the fans to fuel their game.

“The fans really get under us and they’re so great here so it really helps us a lot,” said Victoria forward Curtis Billsten after Wednesday night’s game.

In the first of four games, Victoria came out swinging by quickly applying offensive pressure on the visitors, delivering immediate results.

Within the first five minutes of the opening period, Victoria had begun the offensive flair that continued throughout the game as Adam Taylor potted his first goal of the game and fifth of the season.

Later on in the first period, Taylor scored his second of the game as he flew up the ice on a short-handed rush and snapped home a bullet glove side to lead his team by two after one period of play.

Goals from Victoria’s Sean O’Connor, Jordie Benn, Taylor and Wes Goldie would give the Salmon Kings a huge six-goal lead in the second period. Benn scored his first professional goal off a wrap-around.

Taylor completed the hat-trick midway through the second period with assists going to Billsten and Tim Wedderburn. Victoria would give coach and general manager Mark Morrison a well-deserved 46th birthday present Wednesday night, as they won by a score of 9-4.

“We were creating a lot of chances that weren’t happening on the road, and it paid off tonight,” Morrison said Wednesday night.

Friday night’s match-up did not feature as many goals as the previous game, but with captain Goldie dropping the gloves against Dan Knapp after a shoving match between the benches, the game still had the same intensity.

The Salmon Kings went down a power-play goal early on Friday night and spent most of the night playing catch-up.

“We were on them for the last two periods but we just couldn’t put any [pucks] by them,” said Goldie after Friday night’s loss. “We needed to stay out of the [penalty] box because they capitalize when they’re on the man advantage.”

Reign goaltender Zatkoff shined Friday night by stopping 40 of 43 shots on net and leading his team to a 4-3 win.

“Zatkoff is a good goalie, we just need to get traffic and keep banging in rebounds. He made some really big saves,” said Victoria’s O’Connor, who was able to solve Zatkoff with his 17th and 18th goals of the season.

Saturday night’s outing was under the watchful eye of Vancouver Canucks Director of Player Development Dave Gagner.

This may have sparked the Salmon Kings as they outplayed the Reign, while Salmon Kings goaltender Julien Ellis, one of seven Canucks or AHL affiliate Manitoba Moose contracted players, had a stellar game by making 43 saves.

The game scoring went back and forth throughout the game, but with the Reign leading 3-2 with time running out, Victoria’s Aaron Brocklehurst was able to fire his sixth goal of the season from the slot past Zatkoff to tie it up and send it to overtime.

But overtime solved nothing, so a shootout was needed. With Julien Ellis stopping all three shot attempts and having Olivier Labelle, Chris St. Jacques and Goldie all burying their shots in the back of the net, the Salmon Kings claimed the win, 4-3.

In the fourth and final game in five days, the Salmon Kings’ Scott Howes opened the scoring at the beginning of the second period and Victoria’s Brady Leavold scored the game winner.

Both players had been healthy scratches the three previous games. The Salmon Kings would add an empty netter with one second left in the game to take the contest 3-1.

The Salmon Kings will return to action in their last series of the regular season on March 18. The last home game of the season will be on Sunday March 22, at 1:05 p.m.