Rockets wrap up pre-season by beating Blazers in a shootout
The Kelowna Rockets can only hope to start the regular season the way they finished off the pre-season — by sweeping the rival Kamloops Blazers in a home-and-home set. Jack Cowell scored the only goal of Saturday’s shootout as the Rockets prevailed 4-3 in Kamloops after blanking the Blazers 1-0 on Friday at Prospera Place.
That made it three straight victories for Kelowna (3-0-1-0) over Kamloops to close out exhibition play, with the Rockets also winning 6-4 last Tuesday in Kelowna.
The Rockets’ lone loss of the pre-season came in their opener on Sept. 2, a 5-4 overtime defeat to the visiting Victoria Royals despite leading 2-0 and 4-2.
But don’t read too much into pre-season results since these teams are all playing with depleted rosters due to ongoing NHL rookie camps and prospect tournaments. Kelowna, for example, was missing 10 players this weekend — at least four should be back in the fold and as many as seven could return to the Rockets, with the other three expected to turn pro.
More telling are playoff results, where the Rockets have also had the Blazers’ number in recent years — eliminating Kamloops in the first round in each of the past two seasons, advancing in six games this spring and seven in 2016. Those series were prolonged by the goaltending heroics of Connor Ingram, who won’t be returning to Kamloops this season. He’s turning pro in Tampa Bay’s system.
These exhibition games are mainly a showcase for young players trying to crack WHL rosters, or on-the-bubble returnees attempting to earn bigger roles for the upcoming campaign.
The Rockets have a handful of available roster spots, with a half-dozen cuts still to come between now and next weekend’s season-opening homeand-home against the Blazers — starting at Prospera Place on Friday, Sept. 22, then in Kamloops on Saturday, Sept. 23.
The WHL pre-season continues through this weekend, but Kelowna is now in the midst of a 13-day break, which will be spent practising and finalizing the lineup.
Some of those players auditioning at the NHL level may not be back in time for opening night, so additional roster moves may occur in early October — delayed by those late arrivals as per usual.
At Kamloops, Nolan Foote scored his first goal of the pre-season for Kelowna, with Kyle Topping netting his second and Leif Mattson his third as the Rockets raced out to a 3-0 lead.
Brodan Salmond continued to shine in stopping all 24 shots he faced in the first half of Saturday’s game before giving way to Cody Porter, an over-ager in camp on a tryout who turned aside 18 of 21 through overtime, then denied all three Kamloops shooters in the tiebreaker.
Porter split Friday’s shutout with James Porter, an unrelated prospect, with Cody blocking 21 to the midpoint and James finishing with 11 saves.
Salmond, the incumbent and soon-to-be 19-year-old who backed up over-ager Michael Herringer last season, made three appearances in the pre-season — stopping 56 of 57 total shots over 90 minutes of work for a .982 save percentage and 0.67 goalsagainst average.
Topping and Mattson, a pair of sophomore forwards and potential linemates, led the Rockets in pre-season scoring with six and five points, respectively.
Liam Kindree, who led the B.C. Major Midget League in scoring last season, finished tied for third with three points (one goal, two assists) in four appearances.
Colum McGauley, who was acquired from Spokane for Tanner Wishnowski last October but played the entire season for the KIJHL’s Nelson Leafs, also had three points (all assists) in his first action with Kelowna.