Freestyle skiers add gold for Canada
Kelowna edges rival Seattle, 5-4, in entertaining contest
The Kelowna Rockets won yet another onegoal game, battling back from an early deficit to knock off the Seattle Thunderbirds 5-4 at Prospera Place on Friday night.
Both teams had good reason to be fired up for their fourth and final meeting of the regular season. The Rockets are in position to capture another B.C. Division crown, while the T-Birds are fighting for the final post-season berth in the Western Conference.
“We got off to a little bit of a slow start, then did some real good things through the middle of the game,” said Rockets head coach Jason Smith. “We made a few mistakes managing the game that allowed them to tie it up.”
Donovan Neuls opened the scoring at 7:26 when he was allowed to make himself just a little too comfortable in front of the Rockets’ crease. Turner Ottenbreit drifted a shot towards the net where Neuls was in position to apply a nifty backhand deflection past Rockets netminder Brodan Salmond.
Four minutes later, the T-Birds extended the lead when Dillon Hamaliuk cruised through the crease and jammed a pass from Matthew Wedman under Salmond.
Kelowna found a quick-strike solution early in the second period, scoring on its first two shots to square the match.
Dillon Dube sped down the boards into the Seattle zone and dished off to a trailing Cal Foote in the high slot. Foote drilled a shot high glove side past T-Birds goaltender Dorrin Luding just 19 seconds in. It was Foote’s 16th goal of the season.
At 2:13, Leif Mattson carried the puck deep into the attacking zone and slid a pass to Dube in the slot. Dube ripped a one-timer past Luding for his 30th of the season to make it 2-2.
Kelowna appeared to take command with a pair of power-play goals early in the third period to go ahead 4-2.
Jack Cowell created a loose puck behind the T-Birds’ net and slid it toward the slot where Mattson stuffed his 19th of the season past Luding at 2:46.
The Rockets owned the puck in Seattle’s zone on its next man advantage until Kaedan Korczak sifted a shot from the point that appeared to glance in off Cowell at 7:13.
But Seattle struck twice, 31 seconds apart, on goals from Wedman and Zack Andrusiak and the game was tied with 4:45 to play.
Kelowna won with a late tally from Kole Lind.
The Rockets’ leading scorer, while ineffective for much of the evening in his return from a four-game absence with an upper-body injury, had enough in the tank to give the 4,859 fans in attendance a glimpse of how dangerous an elite skill-set can be.
Lind took a feed from Carsen Twarynski in the neutral zone, sped in on the off-wing on Luding and buried his 32nd of the season with 1:21 to play.
The Rockets are now 37-14-4-2 for 80 points. Combined with the Victoria Royals’ 2-1 loss to Portland, Kelowna now has a five-point lead atop the B.C. Division standings. The Rockets are 15-4-5-1 in one-goal games.
“Generally our guys have stuck with it and grinded it out pretty good,” Smith said, when asked about winning close games. “We can do a better job of managing the game when we’re ahead, but throughout the season we’ve done a pretty good job keeping the lead or battling back to take the lead.
“I think that’s a sign of a team that competes and plays hard.”
ICE CHIPS: Kelowna outshot Seattle 29-27, and is now 22-10-1-2 when outshooting opponents . . . . The three stars were Dube, Mattson and Hamaliuk . . . . Kelowna scratched James Hilsendager, Nolan Foote, Kyle Topping, Colum McGauley and Roman Basran. Prior to Friday’s absence, Topping had played in all 60 games this season . . . . The Rockets host the Kamloops Blazers tonight, 7:05 p.m. at Prospera Place.