Photo credit: Steve Dunsmoor

By Regan Bartel

Rockets win with 3 goal third period

‘We bent but we never broke’ – Rockets AC Derrick Martin

Oct 15, 2024 | 7:00 AM

It isn’t ideal, but sometimes you have to outscore your problems. 

The Kelowna Rockets did that Monday afternoon in a 7-5 win over the visiting Prince Albert Raiders.  

In a game where defensive miscues were commonplace, yet offensive chances were aplenty, the Rockets earned their third straight win after starting the season with five consecutive losses. 

“It wasn’t a team we took for granted or took lightly,” Rockets assistant coach Derrick Martin said about the Raiders, who have now lost five straight games. “We knew it would be a hard test. They have given every opponent they’ve faced this season – fits. The difficult thing was it was a battle of specialty teams.” 

The Raiders had seven power plays, scoring on two of them, with three chances coming after a Rockets defender sent the puck over the glass, resulting in a delay of game minor penalty.

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“We had a lot of guys playing a bunch [killing off penalties] and guys waiting for that five-on-five shift to return,” Martin continued. “In the second period, those shifts really never came about.” 

The Raiders, down 4-1, battled back with two goals, including a five-on-three-man advantage, and the Rockets needed a strong third period push when they saw the Raiders score four consecutive goals to take a 5-4 lead. 

“It was a tale of a group that we got up and let it slip away,” Martin added. “I call it a character win as good teams find a way. We bent a little bit but we never broke, so we will take it. It is nice to be 2-0 this weekend at home and stack some good things together.” 

Caden Price led the way with a four-assist effort, which came on the heels of a 1+3=4 game against the Portland Winterhawks on Friday. The 19-year-old leads the team in scoring and is just one point back of Tarin Smith of the Everett Silvertips for WHL scoring among defensemen. 

“I still like a three-goal lead over a one goal lead,” Martin said with a chuckle. “They get a five on three goal and a bad luck play. Pricer [Price] is going to be there on time but gets his stick caught in Jake Pilon’s pad and can’t clear it away. That is the difference in a game of inches.”  

The Rockets have allowed 10 power play goals against this season, which translates into the second worst penalty killing unit of the 22 teams on the circuit.

“It is still early on in the season and we are working out the kinks, and power plays tend to be better than penalty kills so we know we have a lot of growth there. We will take the two points.”

Listen to Regan Bartel speak with Derrick Martin after Monday’s win:

Of the seven goals the Rockets scored against the Raiders, Ethan Neutens, Michael Cicek and Max Graham found the back of the net either by being at the lip of the crease of pocking a loose puck home that was in the blue paint. 

“In the last three games we have been able to create more net front traffic.” Martin explained. “I am a believer in what you do in practice rear its head in games, and we have done a lot of work on battle and compete and making sure we are making it hard on each other and it carries over into games like this. The game was hard in both houses [in front of net], and we did a good job of clearing it in our end and attack at their end of the ice.” 

Jake Pilon, while guilty of giving up a soft goal early in the third period to make it 5-5, had to make several solid saves, including a breakaway stop, with a season high 40 pucks directed his way. 

“We thing when we have a lot of nights with five-on-five play, we have a group that can play wave after wave hockey,” Martin conceded. “We can run four lines and three sets of d-pairings out at you. When it’s a special teams’ night, you don’t get that opportunity.”

The Rockets have now carried a one goal lead into the third period in three of the last five games, losing to Prince George, yet earning victories over Tri-City and Prince Albert. 

“You need to gut out one-goal games,” Martin said. “We have found ourselves on both sides of the score, but the older guys pulling in the dressing room and a little more practice time with the group, it is starting to showcase what we are capable of. In one goal games we should be a group that thrives on them.

“We aren’t feeling like we did everything right tonight, but we did enough to deserve a win.”