Photo credit: Steve Dunsmoor

By Regan Bartel

Late surge falls flat

Rockets come up short in Tri-City

Nov 29, 2025 | 6:00 AM

The Tri-City Americans don’t score much. Heading into the weekend they were averaging among the fewest goals per game in the WHL, not a team that blows you away but one that can drag you into a tight, grinding style if you let them. The Rockets rolled in feeling good after Wednesday’s 6–1 win in Spokane, but left the Toyota Center on the wrong end of a 5–2 score.

“It was a playoff-type game tonight,” Assistant Coach Brandon McMillan said. “We came out, moving our feet and were finishing checks. I thought at times in the first period or two, we had a lot of really good looks and really good chances that we just couldn’t capitalize on. It would have been nice to get one a little bit earlier, but I thought our group had a really good intermission there in the second, rallied, and we’re ready to go.”

Kelowna trailed 1–0 after one and 2–0 after two even though they had long stretches where they controlled the puck. McMillan didn’t think his team was far off.

“We made a little change there just to try and spark the group and first shift they ended up scoring two goals for us and we came out really strong and controlled the play for the majority of the start of that third period,” he said. “It’s a good starting point for our group that we were confident in coming back there and just weren’t able to hold on to it.”

Those goals came 31 seconds apart from Shane Smith and Tij Iginla, flipping the game to 2–2 and giving Kelowna all the jump. Four-on-four, the Rockets kept pushing and Tri-City sat back.

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“You can tell we had all the momentum,” McMillan said. “They were really back on their heels and we were driving the play. It would have been nice to get another one because we had those chances. Even after we scored those first two in the first minute, I felt like for the next ten minutes or so we were really driving the play and could have had another one to add to the lead.”

But one turnover inside the Rockets zone changed everything. Tri-City buried it to go up 3-2 and added two more to finish it off.

“You could just see that they got a lot of life out of that,” McMillan said. “I wouldn’t say it took the life out of us. We still felt like we could have scored one. It just felt like they kind of settled down when they got that third one, and they were like, OK, we can play with them and that was the game right there, that play, and that’s what finished it up.”

For a team that doesn’t usually score much, the Americans showed they can turn mistakes into momentum. They also brought their usual size and heaviness.

“They’re a really big team,” McMillan said. “They skate fairly well and they finish all their checks. So it’s like a playoff-style game. There’s not a lot of space. There’s not a lot of room for the players. We need to make quick decisions and be scanning the ice to know where we’re putting the puck. That’s where they got us a few times where we just weren’t ready when we got the puck and weren’t prepared to know the next play.”

The pace got wild at times and McMillan didn’t deny it.

“There was definitely some turnovers and back and forth play and some unstructured play,” he said. “Some guys running around a little bit and you can expect that from them. They were, that’s kind of their game plan. We kind of just said in the room we’re going to get teams’ best game. All year long we’re on the top of this pedestal. Teams know we have the Memorial Cup this year. Every team we play they’re going to be ready to play and that’s what we said to our group tonight. We’re going to get teams’ best every night and we need to be ready for that.”

Now it’s right back to Spokane, less than 48 hours after beating the Chiefs 6-1 earlier in the week. Spokane dropped a 5-4 decision in Kamloops on Friday, so they’ll be in a mood.

“This is a big game for our group too,” McMillan said. “We lost two points tonight and we have to be a group that’s ready and eager to win the game and that’s just the bottom line.

“We can’t try and dip our toe in the water. We need to dive right in and really take the wind out of their sails right away and hopefully we can come away with the two points again in Spokane.”