Rockets return home down 2-0
They’ve come back from worse, but you can bet the Rockets don’t want it to get that far again.
The Kelowna Rockets are to host Game 3 of their WHL playoff series against the Seattle Thunderbirds tonight at Prospera Place hoping the change of scenery reverses their fortunes. Seattle leads the best-of-seven series 20 after outscoring Kelowna 13-3 over the weekend in Washington State.
The Rockets fell 6-0 in the opening game on Friday night at the accesso ShoWare Center in Kent, and then 7-3 on Saturday night.
“We knew what was going to happen early, they were going to come out with emotion,” Rockets’ head coach Kris Mallette said. “We put ourselves in a pretty deep hole with a penalty right off the bat, down three before you could even blink it seemed like. We knew they were going to come out hard, it’s a tough hole to get out of. We couldn’t really find our rhythm. Third period, I thought we pushed a little more of the type of hockey we need to play to compete.”
The T-Birds dominated the majority of the game with aggressive play, holding the Rockets to just five shots in the opening period and six in the second frame. Seattle outshot the Rockets 34-21 overall in Game 1.
With a Rocket sitting in a penalty box, Jared Davidson opened the scoring 1:37 into the game. Sam Oremba and Lucas Ciona added goals early in the first.
Matthew Rempe and Jordan Gustafson made it 5-0 in the second period. Jari Kykkanen replaced starter Talyn Boyko in net for the Rockets following Gustafson’s goal.
Davidson netted the Thunderbirds fourth power play goal of the game with under a minute to play in the contest.
The Rockets were zero-for-seven on the power play, while the T-Birds went four-forseven.
Boyko made 17 saves on 22 shots through 33:45 of action before being relieved. Kykkanen stopped 11 of the 12 shots he faced through 26:17. Seattle goaltender Thomas Milic stopped all 21 shots he faced.
THUNDERBIRDS 7, ROCKETS 3
The Rockets kept it close through nearly two periods when Seattle scored with 34 seconds left in the second to make it 4-2 during Game 2 on Saturday.
The T-Birds pushed further ahead with another goal 17 seconds into the third to give them a commanding 5-3 lead.
Henrik Rybinski and Adam Kydd traded power-play goals in the first half of the period. Lukas Svejkovsky reestablished the Thunderbird lead under a minute after Kydd’s goal.
Reid Schaefer added another Seattle powerplay goal 5:54 into the second. Mark Liwiski found the back of the net at the midway point of the period, but Svejkovsky tallied another in the final minute of the second.
Rybinski added his second goal of the game just 17 seconds into the third period. Pavel Novak pulled Kelowna back within two, but Svejkovsky completed the hat trick 1:30 later. Kevin Korchinski added another Seattle goal before the end of the game. Seattle outshot Kelowna 40-31. Boyko stopped 33 of the 40 shots he faced, while Thomas Milic turned aside 28 of the 31 he faced. The Rockets were one-for-two with the man advantage, while the T-Birds were three-for-seven.
Game time is 7 p.m. tonight and Wednesday for Game 4.
HISTORIC ACHIEVEMENT
The Rockets have been in a similar position before against the T-Birds; they fell behind 20 in the opening round of the 2013 playoffs — dropping their first two games on home ice at Prospera Place. The 2013 squad then fell into a 3-0 hole with another loss, but the Rockets charged back with four straight wins to win the series 4-3.
“We’re excited to be back at home. We’ve had great success here this season and we’d like to continue that here in the playoffs,” Mallette said. “I think we need to obviously skate and stay disciplined. We need to trust our system and our process, and understand that we’re a very good hockey club.”
Tonight’s game ends another long playoff drought; it’s the first playoff games to be played at Prospera Place since 2018 when the Rockets faced the Tri-City Americans.
WHL LAUDS KORCHINSKI
The WHL named Seattle defenceman Kevin Korchinski its Player of the Week, Monday.
The 17-year-old led all WHL blueliners with six points (1G-5A) as Seattle took a 2-0 series lead in their first-round set with the Rockets.
The Saskatoon-born player collected three assists in his WHL playoff debut Friday, and scored once and added two helpers, Saturday.
The 6-foot-2, 175-pound rearguard is rated No. 20 among North American skaters ahead of the 2022 NHL draft. This season, he became the first WHL defenceman in 32 years to record 60 or more assists in his first year of NHL draft eligibility.