The Silverbacks now sit six points back of a playoff position after their mediocre road trip against Powell River, Cowichan Valley and Chilliwack.
Five regulars in the ’Backs lineup did not make the trip, Nick Hutchison, Jack Berezan, Nic Josephs, Taylor Maruya and Karl El-Mir.
Making the jump to the BCHL were call-ups Steven Jandric, 17, of Prince George and Cam Coutre, 16, of Victoria.
On Friday night, in Powell River, Thomas Plese opened the scoring on the two-man advantage, banging in the rebound for his second goal of the season.
The Kings’ leading scorer Kurt Keats scored an equalizer early in the second period for his 20th of the season.
A minute-and-a-half later, Ryley Booth scored his first goal in Silverbacks colours on a blast from the point.
Josh Laframboise picked up his first point for the Silverbacks since being traded from Penticton, assisting on Taro Hirose’s eighth goal of the season.
Powell River pulled back to within one goal of Salmon Arm a mere 20 seconds after Hirose’s marker.
Salmon Arm gave up its third short-handed goal of the year when Keats scored his second of the game, tying the game at three.
A scoreless third period led to overtime, each team would earn at least one point.
The Kings appeared to win the game in the first overtime, when leading scorer Jarid Lukosevicius beat the Silverbacks starter Angus Redmond.
However, the goal was waved off after the Kings, Keats, was penalized for being an ineligible player after not leaving the ice when his visor was knocked off during the play.
Jacob Pritchard eventually found the game winner in the second overtime frame, denying the Silverbacks the extra point.
“I thought we were outstanding that first period. The guys were staying positive, their focus was still there then boom, some bad luck happens,” said Brandon West, Silverbacks head coach.
Zach Dyment got his seventh start of the season against Cowichan Valley on Saturday evening.
Dyment did not get the start he was looking for as the Capitals’ Sean Harrison scored just 1:08 into the opening frame.
“That was not the way we anticipated our response from the night before in Powell River,” West said.
At the end of 40 minutes, Cowichan was leading 4-1, and had eight chances with the man advantage.
“We took some unwanted, unneeded penalties. We need to be much better with our discipline,” said West.
Despite the penalty troubles, Salmon Arm still managed to kill off 83 per cent of their penalties in the first two games of their three-game road trip.
West was pleased by this fact, but stressed that the ‘Backs can not afford to take so many penalties as it will diminish their chances to win games.
“Throughout the game, when you’ve got to kill 10 penalties, you’re not going to win hockey games,” West said.
“It’s damn near impossible to win games when you spend that much time in the penalty box.”
The final score in Duncan was 7-3 for the Caps.
For the first time this season, the Silverbacks and Chiefs faced off on Sunday in the Fraser Valley.
AP call-up, Steven Jandric, scored his first BCHL goal in the Silverbacks 3-2 loss to Chilliwack.
Taro Hirose also netted a goal, his ninth of the season.
“We have to step up and make sure that when things do go negative for us, we come right back with something positive,” said West.
The Silverbacks are now win-less in their last five games as they head back to the Shaw Centre to battle Interior Division rivals, Vernon on Friday at 7 p.m.
This will be the fourth meeting between the Vipers and Silverbacks. So far they have split the season series each winning a game and drawing one.