Rockets in Prince George for twinbill, starts tonight
The Kelowna Rockets will be looking to play spoiler tonight in Prince George as the opponent for the Cougars’ home opener.
The Rockets (0-3-0-0) will also be looking for their first win and to avenge a 4-2 loss against the Cougars (1-1-0-1) on Wednesday night at Prospera Place in the first of three straight games between the B.C. Division rivals. They meert again tonight and Saturday, both 7 p.m. puck-drops at CN Centre in P.G.
After three consecutive defeats to start the WHL regular season — also losing 4-1 and 3-1 to the Kamloops Blazers last weekend — Rockets assistant coach Travis Crickard says the players need to increase their work ethic.
“Typically as long as your club is competing hard, it’s easy to be positive with your group because you know things will turn around. Right now, we just aren’t competing hard enough,” Crickard said. “We’re not finishing checks, not skating hard enough on entry into the offensive zone, and not skating hard enough on the forecheck.
“We, as coaches, just need to be giving constant reminders of those things.”
Tonight is the second of nine meetings between these two clubs this season. The Rockets and Cougars met eight times in 2017-18 with Kelowna taking the season series with a record of 6-2-0-0.
The Rockets currently sit fifth in the B.C. Division standings, three points back of the fourth-place Prince George Cougars, and four points back of the Kamloops Blazers, Vancouver Giants and Victoria Royals, who are all tied with four points.
“Effort is a big issue for us right now,” Crickard reiterated. “We removed four highly skilled players from our lineup from last year. When you take those guys away, it’s important for our players to realize that if we are missing skill, we need to make up for it in other areas — our compete level, our defending and our special teams.
“For me, as a coach, I can control the complexity of what we are doing on special teams. The power play has struggled out of the gate, which is a result of poor passing and slow puck movement. So we need to get the guys focused more on the fundamental of passing rather than structure,” Crickard added.
Kelowna returns home for a Wednesday, Oct. 3 matchup in which the Rockets continue their stretch of divisional opponents to open the regular season as they host the Vancouver Giants (2-0-0-0) at Prospera Place, 7:05 p.m.