Rockets, Thunderbirds do battle in Seattle
After a long drive into the U.S., the Kelowna Rockets never got rolling on Saturday night. The Seattle Thunderbirds jumped out to a 3-0 lead and rode their power-play to a 5-3 win in WHL action.
The Rockets gave up the first goal just 3:26 in, when Ryan Gropp beat Michael Herringer for his 26th of the season.
Gropp was at it again just 2:16 later, scoring on a power play.
Ethan Bear, on another power play, stretched the lead to 3-0 at the 3:32 mark of the second period.
Dillon Dube put the Rockets on the board at 7:26 of the second when he beat Seattle netminder Rylan Toth on a penalty shot.
Then, just 2:21 later, Keegan Kolesar scored the T-Birds’ third power-play goal of the night — and star winger Mathew Barzal had his fourth assist.
Reid Gardiner started the comeback on a Rockets power play at 8:38 of the third to make it 4-2, but Gropp scored another power-play goal into an empty net with 1:07 left to complete his hat-trick.
Kyle Topping rounded out the scoring with 23 seconds left to make the final 5-3.
The Rockets offence gets full marks for effort, outshooting Seattle 39-24 — and 17-7 in the third period as they battled to get back into the game. the team they are chasing — the Kamloops Blazers — also lost. Kamloops fell 3-1 in Everett one night after getting thumped 8-2 at home by the Rockets.
Also on Saturday, Victoria beat Vancouver 3-1 to pull within four points of Kelowna for third place.
First-place Prince George took their turn beating a fading Edmonton team, winning 5-2 to pull five points clear of Kamloops.
Kelowna visits the Spokane Chiefs (25-256-3) today, the only Western Conference team the Rockets have yet to beat this season — losing all three games in overtime.
The Rockets then return home to face Prince George (40-19-3-2) on Wednesday at Prospera Place.