B.C. rivals Rockets, Royals battle in key WHL tilt
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And down the stretch they come.
The Victoria Royals defeated the Kelowna Rockets 6-1 before 4,887 fans Friday night at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre to move into a first-place tie with the Rockets atop the WHL’s B.C. Division, although Kelowna retains two games in hand.
“You can feel the intensity ramping up,” said Royals coach Dan Price.
Victoria captain Matthew Phillips, in his 200th career WHL game, scored two goals and has 41 on the season as he extended his points streak to 16 games with 13 goals and 31 points in that span.
He is now one game from tying the all-time franchise record of 17 games that he set himself this season.
“This rivalry is very much there. A lot of guys care a lot on both sides,” said Phillips, of facing the Rockets.
“We played a complete game,” he added, citing especially Victoria’s fourth line.
The performance of the night may have been by Victoria forward Tanner Kaspick, who showed why he has a three-year, NHL entry-level contract in the vault from the St. Louis Blues. Kaspick delivered two pin-point assists — one to Dante Hannoun in the first period on the power play and the other to Igor Martynov in the second period — for tap-in goals.
“The other guys did a lot to open themselves up,” said Kaspick, deflecting the credit for a three-assist night.
“I was not too happy with my game in Portland [where he returned from injury Wednesday and went minus-four in the 8-5 loss to the Winterhawks]. It’s nice to get back on track.”
Royals-sniper Tyler Soy scored his 28th goal of the season and franchise-best 143rd of his career on a four-point night. Andrei Grishakov scored the other Victoria goal on the power play. Hannoun finished with three points as the Royals moved to 33-19-4.
A key juncture came when Victoria weathered a four-minute double-minor penalty in the second period to Braydon Buziak for slew-footing, which is not something you see called every night.
“That was a pivotal moment in the game and a large effort by our penalty-kill group," said Price.
Kelowna forward Dillon Dubé later took advantage of a Victoria defensive miscue to pull Kelowna to within 2-1 at 11:26 of the second period, but the Royals seemed to have an answer for everything on this night.
This is a fine Rockets team (33-17-4) featuring NHL secondround draft picks Kole Lind of the Vancouver Canucks and Dubé of the Calgary Flames and Tampa Bay Lightning first-round blueliner Cal Foote. It took the best from Victoria goaltender Griffen Outhouse to keep the Rockets at bay in a 37-save performance before being relieved late in garbage time by rookie Dean McNabb.
Dubé and Foote were members of the gold-medallist Canadian team at the 2018 world junior championship in Buffalo. Meanwhile, it was an Island homecoming for forwards Kyle Brennan from Victoria and Kyle Topping of Salt Spring Island and defenceman Kyle Pow of Nanaimo.
The teams meet again tonight at the Memorial Centre.