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.

However, giving a quality team like Seattle (39-18-3-2) nine power-play chances won’t get it done most nights. It didn’t on this one as the T-Birds scored four times with the man advantage. Kelowna’s power play was 1-for-4.

Barzal, Gropp and Toth were the three stars.

The loss doesn’t hurt Kelowna (36-21-5-0) too much in the B.C. Division standings, as 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.