Thursday, November 04, 2010

Powerplay Fuels Rocket Comeback

Three powerplay goals in the third period erased the Blazers 2-1 lead as the Kelowna Rockets came into ISC and left with a 5-2 victory.

PP goals from Damon Severson, Shane McColgan and Mitchell Callahan led the way back for the Rockets. Brett Bulmer added an empty-netter for good measure.

The Blazers and Rockets both had five powerplays on the night... the Rockets going 3/5 and the Blazers 0/5. That in itself was the game story. The Blazers outshot the Rockets 39-31 on the night.

The Rockets got first ever WHL goals from Severson and F Colton Heffley. Heffley tied the game in the 2nd period.

For the Blazers, it was a special night for F Chase Souto despite the loss. He scored his first ever goal to open the scoring on a nice cross-crease pass from Dalibor Bortnak in the 2nd period. D Austin Madaisky scored the other Blazer goal with one minute to play in the 2nd period to give the Blazers a 2-1 lead after two periods.

The Rockets fore-check was relentless on the night. Each team took over the game at certain points. Adam Brown was good in the Rockets goal. He made several big stops including a save on a Brendan Ranford breakaway in the third. The 19 year-old is one of the quickest lateral goaltenders in the league.

The Blazers get on the bus early Thursday bound for Calgary. They play the Eastern Conference's basement dwellers Friday night at the 'Dome. The Hitmen have struggled lately. They have dropped seven in a row - six of those seven have been on home ice.

The Blazers will try for six straight road wins. It would be the first time they've done that since the 1998-99 season.

Jon

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

John is this team better than a 500 club or is what weve been seeing to be expected the rest of the year

Jon Keen said...

that's a good question. Certainly their record doesn't reflect the teams performance through the first quarter of the season.

They remind me of the 07/08 broncos. Took them until the trade deadline to get it going and then put it together winning 10 in a row. But for the first half of the year it was an up and down team.

This team has big things on the horizon. It'll come.