Power Outage!

Jon Howe Photo

• Specialty teams were anything but for the Kelowna Rockets in a 6-2 drubbing Tuesday night against the Victoria Royals. The Rockets were 0 for 7 on the power play and surrendered 4 goals against on 7 chances when down by a man. It all added up to the teams five game road winning streak coming to an abrupt end. Devante Stephens and Kole Lind scored in the loss, the Rockets 11th of the season. Just when you think this group is taking several strides forward, they come crashing back to earth with a sub par effort.  
• You knew the Royals would be more determined after looking listless Sunday in a 5-1 home ice loss. Victoria played more determined, finishing checks and getting strong goaltending from Griffen Outhouse. The Royals, despite playing without leading scorer Tyler Soy, earned a win in the eighth and final game of the longest home stand of the season. The Royals were able to win 6 of those 8 home games which is saying something, considering most teams that play that many consecutive home games usually have a hard time getting their engines going. The Royals remain four points up on the Rockets for third place in the BC Division.
• Kole Lind played in his 100th career game and scored his team leading 12th goal of the season. Lind now has goals in 6 of his last 7 games.
• Rodney Southam played in his 200th career game. Southam has played 137 of those with the Rockets organization.  
• Despite the lopsided 6-2 loss, the Rockets are improving in an effort to generate offense. The team has scored 53 goals in their last 13 games. That is an average of 4.08 goals per game. In the teams first 11 games they managed to score only 23 goals or 2.09 goals per game.
• It is hard to believe but the team has only 12 games left before the Christmas break. Of those 12, 9 of them are on the road. The only home games are against Regina, Brandon and Seattle.