Lind/Porter lead way to road win

James Porter Junior - Shoot the Breeze Photo 

• For the first time this season, the Kelowna Rockets are in sole possession of first place in the BC Division. On opening night they shared it with the Victoria Royals, but after chasing their Island nemesis for three months, they now sit two points up on them with two games in hand. At one point this season, the Royals enjoyed an 8 point advantage. Kole Lind scored three times last night leading the Kelowna Rockets to a 3-0 win over the Kamloops Blazers. While Lind was scoring, rookie goaltender James Porter Junior made 28 saves in the shutout as the Rockets extended their winning streak to four games. Porter has two shutouts in his last three starts.
• Lind now has two-three goal games in his last four. Honestly, Lind could have scored more times last night but failed on a second-second period breakaway, as the 19 year-old fired a season high 9 shots on goal. Lind's skill set is elite, with some now questioning why one of the best scorers in Canadian junior hockey is not playing for his country in Buffalo this week. Since Lind's return to Kelowna after being released from Hockey Canada's main camp, the pride of Shaunavon, Saskatchewan has 7 goals and 4 assists, which is good for 11 points.
• Lind scored 30 goals last season and has 20 goals this season. Those 50 goals have been scored in 97 regular season games.   
• Lind scored twice on the power play and now is tied with Carsen Twarynski for the team lead in power play goals with 8. 
• Both Kole Lind and Carsen Twarynski have enjoyed two-three goals games this season. Who was the last Kelowna Rockets player to record three hat-tricks in one season? Justin Keller accomplished the feat during the 2005-2006 season when he scored 51 times. Chuck Kobasew also had three-three goal games in 2001-2002. Kobasew scored 41 goals that season. Brett McLean had three-three goal games in 1998-99. McLean had 7 career hat-tricks wearing Kelowna Rockets colours.
• If you compare Wednesday's 2-1 shootout win over the Blazers and last night's 3-0 road victory against the same team, it was like comparing apples to oranges. I am not saying the Rockets were without their warts in their 22nd win of the season, but it was a much improved effort from two days prior. Structurally, the team played a much better game. Puck management resulted in a significant reduction in the number of turnovers the team surrendered. In Wednesday's win, I hadn't seen the team look that disorganized in their own zone since a 6-3 loss in Moose Jaw back on December 12th. 
• The game featured three fights. Rookie Kyle Pow, second year forward Connor Bruggen-Cate and 20 year-old Carsen Twarysnki were involved in the physical affair. It was Pow's third fight of the season and Twarynski's first as a Kelowna Rocket. Bruggen-Cate has 4 fighting majors in his career, with three of the them coming against the Blazers. Regardless of the outcome, I thought it was great to see all three guys show up and defend themselves or a teammate. Let's throw Kyle Topping in the mix, who was involved in some rough stuff after line-mate Kole Lind was labeled at the Blazers blue-line by Nolan Kneen.
• While no penalty was called on the play, Kneen clearly had Lind lined up for a huge hit when the forward skated with the puck inside the Blazers zone,. Kneen came across and laid the boom on Lind, who crashed to the ice but quickly made his way to his skates and didn't miss a shift. On video replay it appeared to be a clean hit. I saw no head contact at all, which was good news for both players. Head contact would have likely resulted in a concussion for Lind and a suspension for Kneen.
• The Rockets are now 4-0-0-0 in the seasonal series against the Blazers, with the penalty killing unit having killed off 13 of 14 shorthanded situations.    
• At the half way point of the season, the Rockets sit in first place in the BC Division, but also in first place in the Western Conference standings. That's awfully impressive for a team that has played without a top six forward (Erik Gardiner) for 22 consecutive games, lost their starting goaltender to injury (Brodan Salmond) and are riding two rookie goaltenders to the top of the standings.