It was another 6-2 loss to Castlegar on Saturday, this time at Grand Forks' Jack Goddard Memorial Arena. The Bruins showed some signs of life as they cling to a faint sliver of hope of making the plya-offs, but untimely penalties and a lack of finish around the net doomed them.
The Rebels went up 2-0 after one period with a pair of power play goals from Matt Reed and veteran defenceman Aaron Brewer, who picked the corner on GF netminder Dominick Stadnyk.
Near the end of the first period, Bruin forward Graham Watkins was tossed by referee Devin Samaddar after putting Castlegar forward Darren Medeiros halfway through the boards.
Watkins received five minutes for a check from behind and a game misconduct.
Connor Gross gave the Bruins some life with the team's first goal at 13:36 of the second period, assisted by Max Newton and Coleton Dawson.
But the Rebs essentially finished off the home team with three unanswered goals from three different scorers (Hunter Jenerou, Connor Beauchemin and Aaron Petten) to go up 5-1.
Dakota Kittle scored a power play goal at 1:50 of the third assisted by Nathan Cory and Kyle Dolly but it was too little too late for the Bruins.
Jenerou finished off the scoring for Castlegar with a power play goal with 48 seconds left.
Stadnyk started the game and played almost 42 minutes, stopping 46 of 51 shots. Kai McDonald replaced him with 18:07 left in the third and stopped 16 of 17 shots he faced.
With Spokane splitting on their East Kootenay road tour, the Braves are now up eight points on the Bruins for the fourth and final play-off spot in the Neil Murdoch division. With only seven games left, Grand Forks play-off hopes are slim indeed.