The Kelowna Rockets were all smiles yesterday afternoon as they took to the ice.
I could have been because of the Rockets were participating in their yearly team photo, or was it the fact that the hockey club was still relishing in a 3-2 overtime victory over Kamloops one night earlier, moving into a tie with Chilliwack for the 4th and final playoff spot?
With 5 wins in their last 6 games at home, the Rockets are playing with surprising confidence at home for a team with a total of just 20 wins, 70% of those victories coming at Prospera Place.
Can the Rockets use that confident, yet cautious demeanor heading into a weekend which has the team facing 3 strong team’s in three night’s of what people are calling ‘must win hockey’?
If past tendancies play a factor for the Rockets, three games in three night’s will be a nightmare.
Back on February 9th to the 11th, the Rockets managed to win just one game. Then in the teams second go at three in three, they lost all of those games and were out-scored 15-4.
In fact the Rockets are 1 and 5 when faced with three games in three night’s and have been outscored 30-10.
In three of those games, they’ve been shutout by scores of 7-0, 4-0 and 3-0.
Ouch!
The Rockets will try to learn from their mistakes when it comes to playing three games in three night’s when they open up tonight at home against Seattle, before hosting Vancouver tomorrow night and then a trip over to Washington State to face the Tri City Americans on Sunday.
The three teams the Rockets face have a combined 115 wins this season, with Vancouver and Tri City already at 41 wins.
It’ll be a tough row to hoe for the Rockets, who’s smiles on the faces of the player’s on team photo day could quickly disappear with a less than stellar weekend.
Let’s just hope the Rockets are ‘picture perfect’ this weekend.
Regan’s Ramblings:
Torrie Jung has a save percentage of .925 in his last 5 starts. Jung will make his 15th straight start tonight, and with the amount of quality rubber he’s been facing, you wonder when and if fatigue will play a factor.
Jung has not won back-to-back games this season.
Derek Yeomans makes his final regular season visit to Kelowna tonight.
The former Rocket, turned T-Bird has been excellent this season having lost just once in his last 11 starts.
I could have been because of the Rockets were participating in their yearly team photo, or was it the fact that the hockey club was still relishing in a 3-2 overtime victory over Kamloops one night earlier, moving into a tie with Chilliwack for the 4th and final playoff spot?
With 5 wins in their last 6 games at home, the Rockets are playing with surprising confidence at home for a team with a total of just 20 wins, 70% of those victories coming at Prospera Place.
Can the Rockets use that confident, yet cautious demeanor heading into a weekend which has the team facing 3 strong team’s in three night’s of what people are calling ‘must win hockey’?
If past tendancies play a factor for the Rockets, three games in three night’s will be a nightmare.
Back on February 9th to the 11th, the Rockets managed to win just one game. Then in the teams second go at three in three, they lost all of those games and were out-scored 15-4.
In fact the Rockets are 1 and 5 when faced with three games in three night’s and have been outscored 30-10.
In three of those games, they’ve been shutout by scores of 7-0, 4-0 and 3-0.
Ouch!
The Rockets will try to learn from their mistakes when it comes to playing three games in three night’s when they open up tonight at home against Seattle, before hosting Vancouver tomorrow night and then a trip over to Washington State to face the Tri City Americans on Sunday.
The three teams the Rockets face have a combined 115 wins this season, with Vancouver and Tri City already at 41 wins.
It’ll be a tough row to hoe for the Rockets, who’s smiles on the faces of the player’s on team photo day could quickly disappear with a less than stellar weekend.
Let’s just hope the Rockets are ‘picture perfect’ this weekend.
Regan’s Ramblings:
Torrie Jung has a save percentage of .925 in his last 5 starts. Jung will make his 15th straight start tonight, and with the amount of quality rubber he’s been facing, you wonder when and if fatigue will play a factor.
Jung has not won back-to-back games this season.
Derek Yeomans makes his final regular season visit to Kelowna tonight.
The former Rocket, turned T-Bird has been excellent this season having lost just once in his last 11 starts.
It’ll be an odd night seeing Yeomans for the final time at Prospera Place, because this is where it all began.
It felt like it was yesterday that Yeomans made his W.H.L debut against the Red Deer Rebels in November of 2003.
Yeomans would lose that game 2-1.
His backup that night was Kelly Guard.
David Schulz is expected to return to the Rockets defensive core tonight after missing Wednesday’s game with the flu.
Schulz will be much needed from a depth standpoint, after the Rockets went essentially down to just 4 d-men in the late stages of regulation time against Kamloops and then in the 4 minutes of overtime before Cody Almond scored the game winner.
With just 14 home ice wins season, the hockey club is 2 short of the lowest total for home wins by the Rockets since they relocated to K-Town from Tacoma.
The Rockets had just 16 home ice wins in 1999-2000, scoring just 95 goals on home ice that season.
You should be watching for two players on the T-Birds roster tonight.
Aaron Gagnon is arguably the best overage player in the W.H.L with 40 goals and 9 goals in his last 6 games.
But 17 year-old T-Bird d-man Thomas Hickey is amazing.
Hickey has 42 points this season in his sophomore season.
By comparison, Josh Gorges had 41 points as a 17 year-old with the Rockets in 2001-2002.
In a worse case scenario let’s hope the game goes into a shoot-out tonight.
The T-Birds are 0-11 in the shootout this season, the worst of any team in the league.
The Rockets aren’t much better though with just 1 win in 5 games where it’s gone into a shootout
It felt like it was yesterday that Yeomans made his W.H.L debut against the Red Deer Rebels in November of 2003.
Yeomans would lose that game 2-1.
His backup that night was Kelly Guard.
David Schulz is expected to return to the Rockets defensive core tonight after missing Wednesday’s game with the flu.
Schulz will be much needed from a depth standpoint, after the Rockets went essentially down to just 4 d-men in the late stages of regulation time against Kamloops and then in the 4 minutes of overtime before Cody Almond scored the game winner.
With just 14 home ice wins season, the hockey club is 2 short of the lowest total for home wins by the Rockets since they relocated to K-Town from Tacoma.
The Rockets had just 16 home ice wins in 1999-2000, scoring just 95 goals on home ice that season.
You should be watching for two players on the T-Birds roster tonight.
Aaron Gagnon is arguably the best overage player in the W.H.L with 40 goals and 9 goals in his last 6 games.
But 17 year-old T-Bird d-man Thomas Hickey is amazing.
Hickey has 42 points this season in his sophomore season.
By comparison, Josh Gorges had 41 points as a 17 year-old with the Rockets in 2001-2002.
In a worse case scenario let’s hope the game goes into a shoot-out tonight.
The T-Birds are 0-11 in the shootout this season, the worst of any team in the league.
The Rockets aren’t much better though with just 1 win in 5 games where it’s gone into a shootout
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