Rockets Game Notes Hitmen

Tonight’s Preview: The Kelowna Rockets and Calgary Hitmen are meeting in game four of the Western Hockey League championship final. The Rockets have a 3-0 lead in the best of seven series after a 3-1 win in game one, a 5-2 victory in game two and a 2-0 shutout win in game three. These two teams have never met in the league final. The Rockets are appearing in the championship series for the third time in franchise history. The Rockets made an appearance in 2003 with a 6 game series win over Red Deer before earning a five game series win against Brandon in 2005. If a game five is necessary, it will be played tomorrow night in Calgary with game six back in Kelowna Saturday. This season the Rockets and Hitmen met twice, with both games being played in Calgary. Both games were decided by a single goal.

What’s Happened So Far: The Rockets have out-scored the Hitmen 10-3 in the first three games…The Hitmen have out-shot the Rockets in two of the three games by a margin of 79-72….The Rockets have opened the scoring in two of the three games…The Hitmen are 0 for 10 on the power play in the series while the Rockets are 2 for 8 with the man advantage…The Rockets have out-scored the Hitmen 7-2 in the third period…Only two of the thirteen goals in the series have been scored in the first period…Mark Guggenberger’s goals against average in this series is 1.00, with a save percentage of .962.

Game Four Success: The Rockets are 3 and 0 in game four’s in the playoffs. The Rockets beat Kamloops 5-3 in round one, used overtime in a 4-3 victory over Tri City in round two and shutout the Giants in game four of the Western Conference final. Overall the Rockets have out-scored the opposition 12-6 in game four situations.

Turn It Up A Notch: Ian Duval scored ten goals with the Rockets in 26 regular season games and has managed to score ten goals in 19 playoff games. Mikael Backlund had 12 goals in 28 regular season games with the Rockets and now has 11 goals in just 16 playoff games.

Goose-Egg for Guggenberger: Mark Guggenberger is moving into some elite company thanks to his third shutout of the playoffs. That matches the three shutouts Derek Yeomans recorded during the 2005 playoffs. The Rockets record for shutouts in one post season is four, set by Kelly Guard in the 2003 post season…The Rockets top five defenceman are a combined +10 in this series. The Hitmen’s top five defenceman are a combined -9… The Rockets have never won a WHL championship title at home. Both wins came on the road in Red Deer in 2003 and in Brandon in 2005…Since 2000, five teams have won the Western Hockey League title with 47 wins or fewer. The last team to win the league title with the same number of wins as the Rockets had this season were the Vancouver Giants, who had 47 victories during the regular season before beating Moose Jaw in 2006. The 2005 Rockets won a WHL title with just 45 wins during the regular season. Medicine Hat had 40 wins in 2004, while Kootenay had 38 victories before capturing the title in 2002. Kootenay also had 44 wins before winning the league in 2000…The Rockets can't touch the Hitmen when it comes to points, wins and goals scored. The Hitmen had 12 more wins and 13 fewer losses than the Rockets during the regular season…The Rockets scored 63 fewer goals and allowed 19 more against than the Hitmen….The Hitmen scored 36 more power play goals than the Rockets during the regular season, and also had 21 more chances with the extra man…The Hitmen had nine players with 50 or more points while the Rockets had just five…The Rockets had five - 20 goal scorers this season. The Hitmen had 7.

I Didn’t Know That: Jamie Benn is now the Kelowna Rockets franchise leader in points in one playoff season. Benn has 31 playoff points, three more than Jesse Schultz, who put up 28 points in the 2003 post season…The Rockets are playing their 20^th playoff game tonight. That means the Rockets are playing their 92^nd game of the season tonight if you include the 72 game regular season schedule. The franchise record for playoff games played is 24, set during the 2005 post season…Ian Duval has 16 points in 19 playoff games this season after recording just 3 points (1+2=3) in 16 playoff games with the Calgary Hitmen last season.