Trail Smoke Eaters open season with two tough losses

Trail Smoke Eaters open season with two tough losses

Published 1:30 pm Sunday, September 20, 2026

The Trail Smoke Eaters’ new season opened at home with promise, but came up short against the Langley Rivermen and Vernon Vipers on the weekend (Sept. 18-19).

The Smoke Eaters opened the season with class in a tribute to longtime Smoke Eaters announcer and supporter Tiger Milburn on Friday at the Cominco Arena. Milburn passed away earlier this month.

However, despite a strong start, Trail suffered a 2-1 loss to Langley and were stymied by Vernon goalie Samuel DiBlasi in a 4-0 setback on Saturday against the Vipers.

“Overall the biggest picture is our offence, or lack of,” said Smoke Eaters head coach and GM Eric Thurston. “Our goaltending the first night was very strong and it was nice to see Marek (Shlenker) come in and play well.
“Last night, giving Vernon those opportunities from our mistakes, we have to clean that up, but ultimately we have to get some offence going.”

The Smoke Eaters opened the game with pressure in the offensive zone and captain Colton Whitfield rang a point shot off the crossbar in the early going.

However, Vipers’ Lithuanian forward Mykolas Skadauskas stripped the Trail defenceman of the puck, walked in all alone and beat Trail goalie Chayse Johnson with a quick low shot for the game winner and a 1-0 lead at 4:57 of the first.

The Vipers went up 2-0 when Jed Lake fired a shot from the hash mark over the glove of Johnson at 16:43, and Ben Trebicky tapped in a slick cross-ice pass to the back door from Toms Trockis to go up 3-0 with 8:09 remaining in the middle frame.

Aaron Zulinick completed the scoring midway through the third period with a power play goal.

Trail held the edge in shots, but couldn’t beat DiBlasi despite several quality chances. Thurston says that working on zone entry and maintaining pressure is key to scoring, and something the team has to work on.

“It’s a big order to ask your goalies to get a shutout every night because you can only get one goal,” said Thurston. “So that’s a big thing for us moving forward, we have to keep up the shot volume but we’ve got to get traffic to the net, get to those tough areas, and get some offensive production from all four lines.”

The Smoke Eaters outshot Vernon 28-25, went 0-for-2 with the extra man, and 1-for-2 on the penalty kill.

Trail went 1-2 in the pre-season, splitting matches with the Cranbrook Bucks and incurring a 6-0 loss to the Vipers in Vernon in its last exhibition match.

The Smoke Eaters are in a rebuild year with more than 15 new faces from a half dozen countries in the line up.

“We have quite a diverse group from literally all over the world,” said Thurston. “We’ve done some team building and . . . they all workout together, they all get along, it’s a good atmosphere. It’s now just following up and having that on the ice, and being in that sync for us moving forward.”

On Friday, Trail opened the scoring on a goal from Caden Stoltz at 15:48 of the second period.

But the Rivermen fought back, tying it five minutes into the third period and netting the winning goal 64 seconds later.

Trail outshot Langley 27-17 and went 0-for-2 on the power play and 3-for-3 on the PK.

“There are some real positives,” said Thurston. “And the bottom line, it’s on me, that’s my job as the coach to find the chemistry in the lines, to find the offence in the lines, and see what we can put together.”

Trail goalie, Marek Shlenker from Okotoks, had a strong debut, bringing two years of WHL experience to the Smoke Eaters crease.

Shlenker played in 78 games with the Portland Winterhawks and the Regina Pats before joining the Smoke Eaters this season, and is one of several bright spots, said Thurston.

The Smoke Eaters also iced five local talents in Trail veteran goalie Chayse Johnson and rookie forward Maddox Gandha, Castlegar product and returning forward Brayden Rotach, as well as Fruitvale defencemen Wade Gallamore and Brayden Tremblay.

“Those guys are giving us good minutes, they play hard and have good sustained pressure,” said Thurston. “It’s exciting to see those guys stepping up and playing some really good hockey.”

Trail will hit the road next Saturday, Sept. 26 for a match against Interior West division rival Cranbrook Bucks, before returning home for a tilt versus West Kelowna Warriors on Wednesday, Sept. 30 at 5 p.m. at the Trail Memorial Centre.