Photo credit: Steve Dunsmoor

By Regan Bartel

Tigers beat Rockets in overtime

Hot start, cold finish

Oct 26, 2025 | 7:00 AM

The Kelowna Rockets delivered one of their most complete opening periods of the season, built a two-goal lead, fired 40 shots on net, and still walked away with only a single point in a 4–3 overtime loss to the Medicine Hat Tigers on home ice.

For assistant coach Brandon McMillan, the script was painfully familiar.

“We came out strong, we were all over them, got up by 2 goals and had a really good first period,” he said. “Just couldn’t drag that and really put the killer instinct into it in the second period, and that let them back into the game, and that’s really the story of the game tonight.”

The Rockets surged early, scoring twice and outshooting the Tigers by a decisive margin. They smothered Medicine Hat’s transition game, forced turnovers, and limited chances against. It was fast, connected hockey — the type of start coaches preach.

But the Tigers, the defending WHL champions, didn’t stay quiet for long.

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“They won the league last year, they got a lot of experience,” McMillan said. “We knew that they were going to turn the page and come out hard in the second period. We just didn’t match their intensity for the period of time we needed to, and we allowed them back in the game. It gives them some energy, some life.”

Medicine Hat responded with three unanswered goals in the second period, flipping a 2–0 deficit into a 3–2 lead. Kelowna’s power play — a storyline becoming too common — went 0-for-5 and even surrendered a short-handed goal.

“That’s going to be a key thing for us this week working in practice before we head up to Vancouver next Saturday,” McMillan said. “We’ve got a lot of things to fix in the special teams and I think that’ll really help our group.”

What’s the biggest issue on the man advantage right now?

“It’s all about reps,” McMillan explained. “We get Iggy back tonight in his spot that he likes to play in and that’s the first time he’s played with this group for a while since he’s been out. It’s all about just getting your reps together as a group and really getting down the places you like and familiarity with your linemates.”

Down 3-2 in the third and with time running out, the Rockets pulled the goaltender for an extra attacker. McMillan called the timeout to set the stage.

“You basically just want to notify the guys that are going to be going on the ice and let them know what you’re thinking and where you’re going to be standing,” he said. “Then it’s kind of up to them to make plays and find what’s open because you’ve got an extra guy on the ice. We just try and reiterate that we need to get pucks to the net.”

The gamble paid off. Kelowna forced the game to overtime with a 6-on-5 goal, with Hayden Paupanekis scoring the equalizing goal to send the game into extra time.

“It’s good to score these 6-on-5 goals, but at the end of the day we ultimately want to be up in these games and not having to fight our way back in the last few minutes,” McMillan said. “I feel like we’ve been doing that a lot this season. We’re going to try and get to a point where we’re the ones that have to kill off the 6-on-5 at the end of the game.”

Overtime, though, was short-lived. Medicine Hat capitalized on a quick transition that turned into a breakaway and the game-winner.

“You don’t want to be trailing a guy, chasing a guy from behind,” McMillan said. “You want to find the lane to the net, play on the defensive side, and make sure they don’t have room to take a free — basically it was a breakaway in our own zone. Something we can work on this week in practice and hopefully get better at.”

Despite the bitter ending, the Rockets’ third period was one of their best.

“We really liked our third as well,” McMillan said. “We were hungry on pucks again. We got back to that urgent game that we needed to play and created a lot of offense and a lot of chances. We could have probably had another goal or two in the third period.”

The numbers back it up: Kelowna outshot the Tigers 40-23 and held one of the league’s highest-shot-volume teams to just 23 attempts on goal.

“We felt like we were tracking pucks well, taking away their neutral-zone plays early, and forcing them to dump a lot of pucks or turn it over in the neutral zone,” McMillan said. “That’s the way we need to play to be successful. If we can keep going on this trajectory, we’re going to be OK.”

Still, moral victories don’t add up in the standings. The Rockets earned a point, but their inability to finish games remains the trend they’re trying to break.

“We’ve got to find a way that we can end those games early on and take the will out of the other team,” McMillan said.

The Rockets now turn their attention to practice, and to fixing a power play that has gone silent, before their next test on the road in Vancouver next Saturday.