7.7°C Mainly Clear 
The Kimberley Dynamiters have 11 games left this season, and nine of them are in the Eddie Mountain Division.
Those are against either the two teams they're chasing for second place or the club entrenched at the bottom.
Tonight's opponent at the Civic Centre — the Golden Rockets — is in the former category. On Saturday, Kimberley visits the last-place Columbia Valley Rockies.
The importance of these final games is not lost on the players.
“We've been stressing this for the last month,” said head coach Kevin MacKay. “We got most of our out-of-division games out of the way fairly early. We've been preaching that these games are really important. If we want to make a serious bid for home ice, we've got to start winning these games just a little more regularly than we have been.”
The Rockets enter the weekend tied with the Creston Valley Thundercats, with 44 points. The Nitros have 41, and have played a game or two more than the two clubs they're chasing.
As tonight's game features two teams fighting for home ice advantage in at least the first round of the KIJHL playoffs, MacKay is expecting an exciting match that will give a good bang for the entertainment buck.
The Nitros hold a 3-1-0-1 record against the Rockets this season, winning their last battle 4-1 in Golden on Dec. 4.
Matt Foster's four goals and eight points are tops on Kimberley against Golden this season, while four of Logan Gutfriend's 11 points on the campaign have come against the Rockets.
If he adds to that tonight, Gutfriend will be doing some from his familiar position on the blueline.
Gutfriend had played much of Wednesday night's 5-3 win over Columbia Valley up front.
Defenceman Jeremy Kelso had hurt his shoulder in that game, an injury MacKay suspects will keep the Las Vegas native out of the lineup for a while.
After Kelso was hurt, the Nitros finished the game with five defencemen by shifting J.T. Ward back to the blueline and moving Gutfriend alongside Brennan Romanovitch and Matt Foster.
“We went with the five defencemen (against Columbia Valley) because we had a day between games, but with back-to-back games and with Golden coming in — they're pretty physical on our D — we're going to have to have some man power back there.”
Up front, Chad Filatoff is day-to-day with a soft-tissue arm injury suffered last weekend.
With that in mind, MacKay is hoping his players can avoid getting any early misconducts with fights and the like.
“We can't get in the habit of doing that. We need everybody. With only a 20-man roster and a couple of injuries already we can't afford to be too short for too long.”
In the crease
Goalie Michael Smith is currently on assignment with the junior A Quesnel Millionaires of the BCHL.
He's filling in for Luke Siemens who was an emergency call-up for the WHL Prince George Cougars last weekend, despite being listed by the Everett Silvertips.
Smith is expected back sometime next week. In the meantime, the Dynamiters will split the backup duties between APs Calvin Zemek and Brayden Hills.
