The Kelowna Rockets should have been an ecstatic, emotional bunch on Saturday night. Instead, it was as if they just finished piling lumber for eight hours.
A win tonight will really pile the pressure on the Calgary Hitmen.
The WHL‘s championship series resumes tonight with Game 3 in Kelowna, 7 p.m. at Prospera Place, with the Rockets holding a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.
The Hitmen entered the battle for the Ed Chynoweth Cup as the favourites, having compiled a league-best 122 points and a nigh-unbeatable home record of 32-4. Now, however, it‘s the underdog Rockets who are in the driver‘s seat after posting two solid wins in Calgary.
“They were both good road games for us,” said Rockets head coach Ryan Huska, whose team recorded 3-1 and 5-2 decisions on Friday and Saturday, respectively, with goaltender Mark Guggenberger leading the way.
Given Calgary‘s home record, it was safe to assume Kelowna‘s dressing room would be rocking. Instead, there were no celebrations, no smirks, no high-fives. It was, it seems, business as usual.
“We relied on our goaltender a lot in certain portions of both games,” continued Huska. “Calgary is a very good hockey club, and in order to beat them, you need everyone playing very well, and that includes your goalie.
“Mark was probably, in those first two games, our best player.”
Through two games against Calgary, Guggenberger has stopped 55 of 58 shots, which translates into a 1.50 goals-against average and a save percentage of .948. His Calgary counterpart, Martin Jones, has a save percentage of .869 and a goals-against average of 3.50.
But as well as Guggenberger has played, the secret to Kelowna‘s success has been blocking shots.
Calgary‘s offence thrives on its defence shooting pucks. The Rockets, however, countered that strength in Games 1 and 2 by placing bodies in Calgary‘s shooting lanes, resulting in blocked shots by the score. While the WHL has no official statistic for blocked shots, it‘s safe to say the Hitmen have had 25 shots blocked, if not more – which means 25 fewer scoring chances.
“Our guys have committed to blocking shots,” said Huska, whose team was also better in both third periods. “That‘s something we‘re going to have to do if we want a chance of winning this series. But they had their scoring chances and they forced a lot of turnovers on us.
“If you want to hope to beat Calgary in the playoffs, like we do, we have to make sure we‘re paying the price and limit their opportunities, if we can, by blocking shots and playing tight in front of our net.”
Said Hitmen coach Dave Lowry: “We have to continually press to go to the net, we have to continue to get guys in front of the net. The goal we scored at the end was a direct result of getting pucks by their guys.
“They do a very good job of blocking shots and they pay the price to win hockey games. We have to make sure, as a group, we stay committed to getting to those areas. As our desperation increased in the third, we got pucks through, we got traffic and we scored our goal.”
Kelowna‘s back-to-back weekend wins were Calgary‘s first back-to-back losses this season.
“We‘re very disappointed,” Lowry said on Saturday after Kelowna‘s 5-2 victory in Game 2. “We‘re a very good hockey team and we‘re playing a very good hockey team. In playoff hockey, the team that makes the least amount of mistakes is usually the team that wins the game.
“The unfortunate part for us is we got down, we spotted them and had to open it up. We made a couple of poor decisions and made a couple of weak plays and the puck was in our net. Like I said, we‘ll leave here, but we also believe in our room that we‘re a very good hockey team.
“Right now, it‘s 2-0, and our mindset, it‘s not going to change. We‘re going to prepare to play and to win the next game.” Top of Page
