Season over for Rockets
Seattle defeats Kelowna in 6 games, advances to face Regina for WHL title
The Kelowna Rockets’ season came to a disappointing and unfortunate end last night.
Disappointing because they bowed out to the Seattle Thunderbirds in the third round of the WHL playoffs for the second straight year, falling in six games after getting swept in four straight last spring.
“It’s obviously disappointing. We didn’t quite play well enough to win the game,” said Rockets head coach Jason Smith. “Playoff hockey, we talked about it from Day 1 as we were going into the first series, the team that normally wins is the team that does it a little better, a little harder, a little longer, and they did that. We just came up a little bit short.”
Unfortunate because of a bad break in the second period that became the turning point in Sunday’s 3-1 defeat that sealed their fate in front of 5,846 fans at Prospera Place.
A sequence that played out over 45 seconds swung the momentum entirely in the Thunderbirds’ favour, and they kept the Rockets at bay in a scoreless third period thanks to some more heroics from rookie goalie Carl Stankowski in the late stages.
Calvin Thurkauf appeared to pull the Rockets even at 2-2 by digging the puck out of a goalmouth scrum and shooting into the upper portion of Seattle’s net, but referee Steve Papp immediately waived the goal off. The ruling, which was supported by video evidence, was that Thurkauf’s shot went in off Papp’s arm, which was strangely reaching in front of Seattle’s net at the time. The replay also showed the puck would have gone in with or without contacting the official, but rules are rules.
On the ensuing shift, Mathew Barzal buried a back-door feed from Aaron Hyman to make it 3-1 at 15:14 of the middle frame. It was Barzal’s first goal of the series — his fifth of the playoffs despite missing the first round with an illness reported to be the mumps — but also his series-leading 10th point.
The Thunderbirds persevered from there in repeating as Western Conference champions and will face the Regina Pats for the Ed Chynoweth Cup starting this weekend in Regina. The Pats also prevailed in six games over the Lethbridge Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference final, rallying for a 7-4 victory on Sunday.
The Rockets had won the even-numbered games in this series prior to Sunday and were trying to force a seventh-and-deciding game.
Reid Gardiner had scored the overtime winner on the road in Game 2 but didn’t score again in the series, and Michael Herringer was solid in closing out a 4-2 home victory in Game 4 but struggled the rest of the way in getting outperformed by the younger Stankowski.
Herringer made 19 saves in each of the final two games, surrendering a combined eight goals on 46 shots for an .828 save percentage.
Kelowna’s other over-ager, captain Rodney Southam, hit the post on Kelowna’s first shot attempt of Game 6 but failed to record a single point in the series.
“They played a great game, obviously good enough to put us out,” said Southam. “It didn’t end the way we wanted it to, but I’m very proud of the guys. We worked our (butts) off all year, and I think we did a lot better than most people thought we were going to do.
“I thought we gave ourselves a chance in every game. It was a matter of a couple games ending in the last 20 seconds, which always hurts, but all in all it could have went either way.”
Indeed, Seattle won the series opener 5-4 on Bear’s goal with 11.2 seconds left and Keegan Kolesar scored the Game 3 winner with exactly 20 seconds remaining for a 2-1 victory.
Nolan Foote, the Rockets’ rookie of the year this season and a key part of the team’s future, did open the scoring in Game 6 on a power play at 15:57 of the first period — showing off his Jamie Benn-esque shot in firing far post on Stankowski.
On the very next shift, Seattle lost top-line winger Kolesar, ejected for a hit from behind on Kelowna defenceman Devante Stephens, who left the game and also did not return.
That put the Rockets down three regulars on defence — James Hilsendager and Braydyn Chizen were already sidelined by injuries — but Kelowna lacked killer instinct on that five-minute power play that carried over the second period and Seattle took over when the teams returned to even strength.
Defenceman Austin Strand, eating many of the extra minutes in Bear’s injury absence, scored the equalizer at 4:56 — a seeing-eye wrister through traffic that eluded Herringer.
Alexander True got the go-ahead goal at 9:30, pouncing on a loose puck in the slot for his third power-play marker in the last two games — this one standing up as the series-winner.
Stankowski only finished with 17 saves on Sunday, but he made a handful of crucial stops in the latter half of the third period — none bigger than stretching out to stone Gardiner on a glorious scoring chance with 3:38 remaining.
“That was a big-time save,” said Thunderbirds coach Steve Konowalchuk. “For a lot of the game we kept it pretty composed in front of him, but there’s going to be times where teams make a push and he was ready for that.”
“Again, he stood on his head,” added Barzal, “but I don’t want to pump his tires too much. I want him to keep playing like he is. He’s doing a heck of a job and he stepped up big.”
ICE CHIPS: Kelowna scratched Hilsendager (hurt in first period of Game 4), Chizen (leg, indefinite), G Brodan Salmond (illness), C Jack Cowell, LW Conner Bruggen-Cate and RW Liam Kindree (AP).