Rockets , Blazers do battle at Prospera
Power-play goal with 7:37 left lifts Kamloops past Kelowna 3-2
Rudolfs Balcers scored twice, including the game winner, as the Kamloops Blazers defeated the Kelowna Rockets 3-2 in front of 5,620 fans at Prospera Place on Friday night.
“We did some things good tonight, but spent too much time in the penalty box,” said Rockets head coach Jason Smith. “It makes it hard to gain any momentum and really play the type of game we want to play.”
Kamloops scored just over a minute in. Collin Shirley chipped the puck past two defenders, where Lane Bauer and Deven Sideroff found themselves alone in front of the Rockets goal. Bauer took a feed from Sideroff and stuffed his 27th of the season past Michael Herringer.
The visitors held a 5-0 shots on goal advantage in the early going, but the Rockets would tilt the rink for the remainder of the period. They directed 13 shots at the Blazers net, but Connor Ingram was able to shut the door until early in the second stanza.
Just 28 seconds in, Calvin Thurkauf and Nick Merkley worked the puck to Lucas Johansen inside the Blazers blue-line. The Washington Capitals firstround pick eluded a defender and fired a shot from the top of the faceoff circle past a screened Ingram.
Five minutes later, with the teams each a man short, Balcers beat James Hilsendager to a loose puck in the neutral zone, raced in alone on Herringer, and wired a shot high to the stick side to give Kamloops a 2-1 lead.
Despite a parade to the penalty box during the second half of the period, the Rockets knotted the tilt at the 14:29 mark. Merkley took a stretch pass from Cal Foote at the Blazers blue-line, dipsydoodled around a Kamloops defenceman and slid a rink-wide pass to a streaking Thurkauf. The import forward drilled a one-timer past Ingram on the short side for his 22nd of the season.
The Rockets were hard on themselves in this one, getting tagged with three delay of game penalties and two bench minors for too many men on the ice.
“It’s disappointing, something to learn from,” Smith said. “The (line) changing penalties are either lack of effort coming to the bench or being in too much of a hurry to get on the ice.
“Flipping it over the glass is about having some poise, and I think we had more time on two of them and the third one was knocking it over with our hands. It’s a lesson learned and hopefully we can take from that and be better from here on out.”
The last of the delay of game penalties led to the Blazers’ only power-play goal of the game with 7:37 to play. Herringer got a glove on Sideroff’s blast from the off wing, but couldn’t corral the puck. Balcers jumped on the rebound and jammed it into a wide open cage.
The Blazers are now five points ahead of Kelowna for second place in the B.C. Division.
ICE CHIPS: The Rockets scratched Konrad Belcourt, Carsen Twarynski and Leif Mattson . . . . Kelowna outshot Kamloops 32-23 . . . . The three stars were Merkley, Ingram and Thurkauf . . . . The Rockets host the Portland Winterhawks tonight. Game time is 7:05 p.m.