Rockets hit rumble strips on road swing

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Of those 19, ten are against teams below them in the standings, with four each against Vancouver and Kamloops and two more vs. Tri-City, a team right now that is on the outside looking in at a playoff birth.

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This recent slide, which has seen the team win just two (2-6-1-0) of its last nine games, the Rockets are now tied with the Giants for sixth. Both teams share identical records of 22-24-3-0, which is good for 47 points.

Despite winning three of four games head-to-head against the G-Men, that is too close for comfort.

“I think right now we should be getting into that mindset [of playing playoff hockey] for sure,” forward Andrew Cristall added. “You want to have a good push before the playoffs so you can keep that momentum going for the first round.”

While looking in the rearview mirror is ill-advised, it’s hard not to with 8th place Spokane now within five points. With the losses mounting, and four tough games remaining against Prince George and Everett, at this stage of the game, while playoffs are the goal, nothing is a given.

“We have to play to just not make the playoffs, we have to play like we are pushing to chase teams that are ahead of us,” Mallette lamented. “We need to clean up areas in our game to be firing on all cylinders, with 14 games left against teams within our division.”

Inconsistency has plagued this team all season long. How can a team lose nine consecutive games, go on an Eastern Division road trip before Christmas and win four of five games, and then struggle to win four times in January?

“It’s been a roller-coaster season,” Mallette added when looking at his team’s body of work over 49 games.

While still with an outside chance of catching Victoria for fifth place in the conference and avoiding ‘killers row’ by playing one of either Prince George, Portland, or Everett in an opening-round playoff series, two things must happen. The Rockets must get on an impressive run in the final six weeks of the regular season and the Royals, who haven’t shown it under head coach James Patrick, must free fall, which would have to start as quickly as Wednesday night when the two face off at Prospera Place (104.7 The Lizard pre-game show starts at 6:35 pm).

What is making wins even tougher to come by down the stretch is the lack of production from two players that have been the backbone of much of the teams offensive success this season. Leading point producer Andrew Cristall, who celebrated his 19th birthday on Sunday, has gone pointless in four of his last seven games, with just one assist in the hockey clubs most recent loss, a 8-5 setback last night in Spokane.

Gabriel Szturc, who has been terrific this season as the club’s second-leading point producer, has just one assist in his last four games. Those two players are not to blame for the team’s recent slide, but when they aren’t producing and essentially keeping the puck away from the hands of the other team’s top players, who are busy defending, the puck more times than not is ending up in the back of the Rockets net.

You can bet one thing; head coach Kris Mallette and able assistant Josh MacNevin will be at their solutionist best to find that winning formula before it’s too late.

“It is definitely time to turn it [the teams play] up a notch,” Cristall concluded.