Giant opportunity for Rockets to move into 1st place
Kelowna only 2 points behind Prince George with a game in hand
The Kelowna Rockets could be first place in the B.C. Division for the first time all season by the end of tonight.
A Kelowna win over the last-place Vancouver Giants combined with a Prince George road loss to the Tri-City Americans would leave the Rockets (41-21-5-0) and Cougars (42-21-3-2) tied atop the standings, but Kelowna has a game in hand and holds the tiebreaker on P.G.
So the Rockets don’t want anybody overlooking tonight’s game — their players or fans.
“We have to go into each game with the mindset that we have to be ready to go out and play and compete. We realize that they’re a team that is going to come out and play hard,” Rockets head coach Jason Smith said of the Giants (19-41-3-3) on the team’s website. “We had a game earlier this year against Vancouver and we didn’t take that mindset into that game and we ended up leaving not getting the results we wanted.
“The last couple times we played them, we played the right way from start to finish and we ended up being able to leave each game with two points,” he added.
Kelowna enters the weekend on a five-game winning streak, while Vancouver is winless in its last six (0-5-1-0). The Rockets are 8-1-1-0 in their last 10. The Giants are 1-8-1-0.
Clearly, two teams trending in opposite directions.
Kelowna has won 11 of 13 — with only one regulation loss — since suffering a 6-0 beating in Kamloops on Feb. 8.
The Rockets rebounded from that setback to blank the Giants 6-0 and 5-0 in a home-andhome on Feb. 10-11, and later avenged the Kamloops loss with an 8-2 thumping of the rival Blazers in their final meeting of the regular season on Feb. 24.
Kelowna has been going strong ever since and hung on for a 4-3 victory over the visiting Victoria Royals (37-25-4-1) on Tuesday. The Royals lost 5-2 the next night in Kamloops, with rematches there tonight and here at Prospera Place on Saturday.
That Rockets-Royals clash is the sexier of Kelowna’s two weekend contests — Games 3 and 4 of this six-game homestand, both 7 p.m. puck-drops — but tonight’s tilt with the Giants is every bit as important.
“We’re just worried about the game at hand,” Smith said. “You can’t control who’s winning those other games — we can only control what we do as a team.
“If we worry about our compete level and get the results we want, we feel we’ll be in a good spot at the end of the year no matter what.”
The Rockets have won four of five meetings with the Giants to date, and finish the regular season with another home-and-home against them next weekend.
Kelowna’s lone loss was a 5-4 defeat in Langley on Jan. 20 despite outshooting the Giants 36-25. Backup goalie Brodan Salmond struggled that night — making only 20 saves — but he bounced back to post consecutive shutouts in those aforementioned victories over Vancouver and earned CHL goaltender of the week for his efforts.
The Rockets also lead their season series with the Royals 5-2-0-0 heading into Saturday’s finale.
As for the standings, Prince George continues to top the B.C. Division with 89 points despite losing 5-4 in Portland on Wednesday and being just 5-4-0-1 in its last 10 games. Kelowna is second with 87 points, followed by Kamloops at 84 and Victoria at 79.
Kelowna and Victoria both have five games left, while Prince George and Kamloops have only four, including a season-ending homeand-home between them next weekend.
So first place is suddenly looking like a very realistic possibility for the Rockets and would be quite the accomplishment for a team that started the season 3-7-0-0 in its opening 10 games. However, nobody in the Rockets’ organization is looking beyond the two points at stake tonight.
ICE CHIPS: Tickets for the Rockets’ awards ceremony — $25 for adults, $15 for kids 12-and-under — are available at the team’s office at Prospera Place. The event will be held next Sunday, March 19 at the Kelowna Community Theatre, with a catered reception starting at 2 p.m. and the award presentations to follow from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.