Rockets begin road trip in P.G.

Kelowna set to face Cougars in 1st-versus-worst twinbill

The Kelowna Rockets will be looking to extend their three-game winning streak tonight when they visit the Prince George Cougars in the opener of a three-game road trip this week.

The first-place Rockets and last-place Cougars will clash tonight and Wednesday in Prince George in a battle of B.C. Division rivals. The Rockets have had trouble hanging on to leads as of late, but are still 4-0-0-1 over their last five games. Assistant coach Kris Mallette believes that can be used as motivation over the last three weeks of the regular season.

“We’ve won some games of late where we haven’t played our best team game, and our message down this stretch will be focusing on that,” Mallette says. “In playoffs, we’ll need to elevate our game if we want to have success. We’ll reiterate that it isn’t just a switch that you can turn on and off. So let’s use these last 10 games to get our team game back and finish off the season the right way.”

With their 6-5 home-ice win over the Kamloops Blazers on Saturday night, the Rockets clinched a playoff spot for the 11th consecutive season and the 26th time in 27 years.

Tonight’s game will be the sixth of eight meetings between the Rockets and Cougars, with Kelowna having won the previous five contests this season.

The season series also started in Prince George, with a twinbill on Oct. 6 and 7. Dillon Dube led the way in both games, putting up eight points (2G, 6A) to help the Rockets secure 7-6 and 4-3 overtime wins.

The Cougars were at Prospera Place on Oct. 28 when James Porter made 27 saves to backstop a 4-2 victory for the Rockets.

Kelowna hosted the Cougars again on Nov. 29, and this time it was Carsen Twarynski’s turn to steal the show. Twarynski notched a hat-trick while Dube (1G, 2A), Cal Foote (1G, 1A) and Kyle Topping (2A) all had multi-point games in a 5-3 Rockets win.

The teams didn’t meet again until last Tuesday, Feb. 20 in Kelowna, when Twarynski netted two first-period goals and Erik Gardiner’s first goal since returning from injury stood as the game-winner.

After this week’s doubleheader in Prince George, the teams will meet one more time in Kelowna on March 14 to wrap up their season series.

The Rockets come into tonight with a 38-18-4-2 record, sitting in first place in the B.C. Division with 82 points. The Victoria Royals are second in the division with 75 points and the Vancouver Giants are third with 70 points.

Prince George’s record sits at 20-33-4-4, last in the B.C. Division and 11 points back of fourth-place Kamloops. The Cougars also sit last in the Western Conference standings, while the Rockets are second only to the U.S. Division-leading Everett Silvertips.

The Rockets head to Everett for a showdown with the Silvertips on Friday before returning home to host the Spokane Chiefs on Saturday, 7:05 p.m. at at Prospera Place.