The Hockey Gods can be cruel sometimes.
Right now, they are not shining favorably on the Kelowna Rockets.
Just when you think things are about to turn for the better, they get worse.
Twice in Saturday’s 3-2 overtime loss in Langley against the Vancouver Giants, the Rockets had a chance to win the game on the power play.
Can it get any more ideal?
Sadly, both times they couldn’t deliver the knockout punch with the extra man.
With Giants defenceman Dylan Anderson, who scored the teddy bear toss goal before a crowd of 5021, in the penalty box for holding late in the third period, the Rockets were awarded a power play with 3:14 left in the game.
Tied at two, the five-man unit, which found the net with regularity in the opening two months of the season, and was able to win games on its own on many nights, was unable to score the game-clinching goal.
Then in overtime, Anderson again was sent to the penalty box, this time for tripping Rockets forward Carson Golder, who was cutting hard to the net.
With plenty of ice to work with, this time on a four-on-three, Andrew Cristall and line-mate Gabriel Szturc, who seem to have synergy as roommates on the road, oddly, collided with one another at the left faceoff circle while Szturc had possession of the puck.
When contact was accidentally made, Szturc fell to the ice, creating a turnover that sent two Giants the other way on an odd-man rush.
Giants leading scorer Samuel Honzek, a Slovakian forward who leads WHL rookies in scoring and is projected to be a first-round NHL draft pick this summer, sped away with the puck. While eventually tracked down by d-man Caden Price just inside the Rockets blue line, the lanky forward located unmarked teammate Brenden Pentecost, and in one quick motion, the puck was one-timed into the net, beating Jari Kykkanen to the glove hand side.
Game over.
It marked the fifth time this season that the Rockets’ power play, the sixth-best unit statistically in the WHL, surrendered a shorthanded goal, while it was the G-Men’s fifth goal while playing a man short.
The Rockets gave up five shorthanded goals all last season.
Closing out one-goal games has been difficult. The team has only two wins to show for it in 10 attempts in nail-biting hockey.
That record is even uglier at 0-6-1-0 in seven one-goal games at Prospera Place.
The team has also lost five consecutive one-goal games, with setbacks to Moose Jaw (4-3), Regina (6-5 in overtime), Spokane (2-1), Victoria (4-3), and Vancouver (3-2 in overtime).
To think, if the Rockets would have won the games they’ve lost by a single goal, they wouldn’t have 23 points after 26 games, they’d have 15 more or 38 points in the standings right now.
Playing without veterans Colton Dach, Noah Dorey, Adam Kydd and Turner McMillen didn’t help Saturday night, but it is that time of the year where many teams across the league are losing players to the upcoming world junior hockey championships.
The Giants were minus Ottawa Senators second round draft pick Zach Ostapchuk, who is attending Team Canada’s training camp with Dach, while Ty Thorpe, a 44-point man from last season, was serving one game suspension.
Thankfully Max Graham is elevating his play, having scored goals in three consecutive games while finding pay dirt six times since returning from injury on November 18th.
With Gabriel Szturc leaving this week to play for Czechia in Moncton, New Brunswick, the task of winning tight games will get even more difficult.
The team embarks Monday on a Central Division road trip which features games in Swift Current, Lethbridge and Medicine Hat.
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