Rockets trail Thunderbirds 2-1 in playoff series
Kelowna outshoots Seattle 35-14, loses 2-1 on goal with 20 seconds left in regulation
The Kelowna Rockets tried to fight fire with fire, but wound up getting burned — by another late goal, by a red-hot rookie goalie and, to a lesser degree, by the Seattle Thunderbirds’ top line.
Keegan Kolesar, a member of that trio, scored both goals — including the winner with 20 seconds remaining in regulation — as the visiting T-Birds prevailed 2-1 over the Rockets on the strength of Carl Stankowski’s 34 saves.
Tuesday’s result was reminiscent of Friday’s series opener when Ethan Bear netted the winner for Seattle with 11.2 seconds left.
“It’s always frustrating to lose in the last minute,” said Calvin Thurkauf, Kelowna’s goal-scorer and the game’s second star behind Stankowski but ahead of Kolesar. “It happened down in Seattle already and now here, but we can learn from those goals.
“It could have went both ways. Both teams had the chances, but they just put the puck in, in the end.”
Kelowna was the better team for much of Game 3 — dominating on the shot-clock 35-14 — but Stankowski and Kolesar combined to give Seattle a 2-1 lead in this best-of-seven Western Conference final.
Game 4 goes tonight, also at Prospera Place at 7 p.m., before the series shifts back to Kent, Wash., for Game 5 on Friday.
“It’s frustrating. We’ve got to be better at the end of those periods and at the end of a game,” Rockets head coach Jason Smith said of what’s been a strange trend, with the teams combining to score six lastminute goals through nine periods so far — not counting Saturday’s overtime period. “It’s a little bit deflating obviously, but we have to be bouncing back and be ready to go (tonight).”
As for that aforementioned firefight, the Rockets opted to pit the teams’ top lines against each other right from the opening faceoff and stuck with it throughout.
Kelowna’s trio of Thurkauf between Reid Gardiner and Nick Merkley got the better of Seattle’s big guns — at least in terms of offensive-zone time and puck possession.
Mathew Barzal, who nearly made the New York Islanders this season, and NHLdrafted wingers Ryan Gropp and Keegan Kolesar struggled to get any traction for the T-Birds in a first period that saw Kelowna outshoot the visitors 9-4.
The Rockets rolled Dillon Dube’s line, flanked by Tomas Soustal and Carsen Twarynski, against Scott Eansor’s line, with Sami Moilanen and Noah Volcan, in what amounted to a saw-off.
At Kent, Wash., for the first two games of the series, Eansor had the assignment of checking Thurkauf — albeit with little success, as Gardiner repeated as the WHL player of the week with five points, including three goals, and Thurkauf assisted on all four of Kelowna’s goals in the Game 2 overtime victory that earned the Rockets a road split.
Seattle’s top line pushed back in the second period, breaking through for the game’s first goal as Kolesar finished off a perfectly executed 2-on-1 feed from Gropp.
“We created opportunities around the net tonight and didn’t capitalize,” Smith said. “We could have been hungrier around the net in the (offensive) zone. We were oneand-done a lot at the net, and their goalie got to see a lot of shots with not enough traffic.
“Now it’s making the next step and making sure we get to the net and find the rebounds that were there, and be battling in that dirty area.”
Stankowski has yet to lose in regulation through 18 career WHL appearances, including a 10-0-1 record in these playoffs — the only blemish being Saturday’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Rockets.
The only puck that beat him Tuesday came in controversial fashion and off an unpredictable bounce.
With Kelowna nearing the end of a long 5-on-3 power play, Merkley’s shot went over the net, ricocheted off the glass and back over the crossbar, narrowly missing Stankowski’s helmet but connecting with Thurkauf’s stick-blade before trickling in with 6:07 left in the third period.