If the Kimberley Dynamiters were looking for payback at home on Saturday night, they didn’t get it.

Playing the Ghostriders for the first time since one of theirs broke the jaw of Nitros defenceman Ryan Georgopoulos, Kimberley’s Liam Jeffries took a costly bunch of penalties that was a major factor in Fernie’s 5-2 win.

“That’s not how we wanted to get going,” said Kimberley head coach Kevin MacKay, whose club also lost 4-2 on Friday in Creston. “Revenge is to get them on the scoreboard, and right from that time we were on our heels.”

The Ghostriders had been up 2-0 late in the first (thanks to Brendan Hawryluk and Michael Anderson) when Jeffries went after Zach Fridella, who’d injured Georgopoulos a week before.

Fridella wasn’t a willing combatant and curled into a shell as Jeffries got off a few punches. For his efforts, the Kimberley enforcer was given five for fighting, two for instigating and a rare two for aggressor-ing.

“We can’t take it as an individual revenge; we’ve got to take it as a team,” said Kimberley captain Corey Allen. “We’ve got to play as a team and work hard as a team to put goals into the net and not try and take it to individuals and try and do it ourselves.”

Fernie (19-3-1-1) wasn’t looking to take its time with the nine-minute power play, as Scott Anderson scored four seconds in.

The Nitros got to the intermission without another goal against, and faced 4:50 left to kill.

Three minutes into the second, a Fernie defenceman fell while handling the puck at his blueline, and Allen picked it up and scored on a breakaway.

That triggered a torrent of toques, blankets and the like on Mitt Toss Night. The game was delayed for several minutes while that was cleaned up.

“I think that might have hurt us a little bit because we’d just scored the goal and got back within two,” said MacKay. “I thought it could have gone either way because of the penalty; it could have kept guys fresh, but they came back and scored. That was the one that killed us. If we’d gotten through that down 3-1, I thought we could have battled back.”

Indeed, 24 seconds after play resumed, Bond Hawryluk scored to put Fernie back up by three.

“It’s funny how fatigue will set in when you’re down, but not if it’s close,” said MacKay. “I thought it sucked the energy out of us when they made it 4-1, and the guys are thinking they’ve got tired legs.”

Zach Traverse made it 5-1 on a power play just before the game’s mid-way point, while Kimberley’s Matt Foster closed scoring on a power play with 21 seconds left in the game.

MacKay had liked how his club played, until a holding penalty five minutes in.

“We never recovered from that. They got their legs going a little quicker and we were standing around too much,” he said. “Then it was all (Fernie) for a while, but I thought for the first four or five minutes we were okay. We were in their zone and took it to them, especially in the first shift. I thought we could feed off that, but it didn’t go that way.”

The night before, the Nitros lost a close one to the Creston Valley Thundercats (14-8-0-2), who scored their last goal into an empty net.

“It’s been penalty troubles lately for us,” said Allen. “They got three goals (on the man advantage), and that was the difference in the game... We’ve got to stay out of the box and try and capitalize on the power plays that we have.”

Creston’s Colton Meaden and Blake Kirkham scored in the first period, each benefiting from lucky bounces.

Brennan Romanovitch and Brennan Foreman each scored in the second to tie the game, while Travis Ludwar scored the eventual winner with three minutes left.

Michael Smith made 25 saves for Kimberley, finishing the weekend with 46 stops.

Defenceman Jeremy Kelso returned briefly from a shoulder injury on Friday, only to hurt his leg.

J.T. Ward moved back to defence on the weekend, and was named the game’s second star on Friday night.

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