Things that make me go hmm…

When you’re 15 and playing against players who can be three or four years older, comparisons are inevitable. The question is whether those comparisons hold up when you look at the numbers.

Two players worth mentioning are Regina Pats forwards Maddox Schultz and Liam Pue, who each played 34 games as underage players last season.

Through their first 10 games, Schultz had six points, with two goals and four assists. Pue had three points, with one goal and two assists.

Daneault has 10 points in seven games.

Do the math. He’s producing at a different level, and he’s doing it against competition that isn’t exactly waiting for him to catch up.

Of course, seven games don’t make a career. Hockey has a funny way of humbling anyone who gets too carried away with a small sample size. But this isn’t about declaring Daneault the next great thing before he’s had time to grow into his equipment.

And here’s where the conversation gets interesting.

In 2024, the WHL granted exceptional status to Landon Dupont, allowing him to enter the league a year early and play in all 68 regular season games. Exceptional status is reserved for players deemed ready to compete at the major junior level ahead of their age group.

Daneault wasn’t granted that designation. But watching him produce at this pace, it’s fair to wonder how different the conversation might have been had he been evaluated for the same opportunity.

That isn’t a claim that Daneault should automatically have received exceptional status. It’s a recognition that his early performance is putting him in some pretty remarkable company for a player his age.

Exceeding Expectations: Madden Daneault is just 15, yet he’s already leading the Kelowna Rockets in scoring. And head coach Derrick Martin says the rookie has exceeded every expectation since the team drafted him in May.

“I think it’s exciting. I think we drafted him for a reason,” Martin told RocketFAN. “My whole thing to everybody inside the organization was let’s not put too much pressure on this young man too early and curb our expectations.”

His production speaks for itself.

“Would you like to have other guys that are leading the team in scoring? Perhaps,” Martin said. “But he’s over a point-a-game player. So, you know, it’s not like he’s sitting with two points and he’s leading our team in points. He’s got 10 points in seven games. He’s done what he needs to do to be able to have that spot.”

Getting Comfortable in Extra Time: An Achilles’ heel for the Rockets a season ago, extra time is treating Kelowna a little more kindly this season.

Through seven games, three have gone beyond regulation. The Rockets have a win and two losses in those contests, which might not sound like a recipe for success, but there are signs of progress.

After dropping their season opener in Vancouver, the Rockets bounced back with a quick overtime victory in Kamloops before falling to the Brandon Wheat Kings last Saturday.

All three games were there for the taking. All three were decided by 3-2 scores.

Here’s the intriguing part: the Rockets are currently on pace to play 26 overtime games this season. That would shatter the WHL record of 20, set twice by the Calgary Hitmen.

Overtime may still be a regular visitor in Kelowna, but at least the Rockets are starting to make themselves feel a little more at home when it arrives.

Someone Has to Pick Up the Slack: When you lose your leading scorers from a season ago, you don’t just lose goals. You lose production that has to come from somewhere else. The Rockets are finding some unlikely sources early this season, and two of them play defence.

Jake Henderson and Rowan Guest are making their presence felt at the other end of the ice.

Henderson already has three goals this season, one more than he scored in all of last season. Guest has two, matching his entire goal output from a year ago.

That’s five goals between two defencemen who appear to have found a little extra offence in their games.

Henderson is now tied for the team lead in goals with 15-year-old Madden Daneault and Dawson Gerwing.

The Rockets don’t need one player to replace their departed leading scorers. They need contributions from several players, and so far, Henderson and Guest are doing their part.

The Goalie Squeeze: When kids first choose a position in hockey, especially goaltending, they probably aren’t thinking about how that decision could work against them years later.

Josh Banini just found out.

The Kelowna Rockets goaltender became the odd man out when the team had to trim its roster to the WHL limit of three 20-year-olds. The Rockets elected to keep defencemen Rowan Guest, Nate Corbet and Dawson Gerwing, leaving Banini looking for his next opportunity.

It’s a tough reality for goaltenders. The WHL has 23 teams, and if each carries two goaltenders, that amounts to just 46 regular roster spots across the league. The window gets even tighter when you’re competing for one of only three overage positions on a team.

You can be a good goaltender, a popular teammate and a valuable member of the dressing room, but none of that guarantees you’ll get to finish your junior career where you started it.

The Rockets have been down this road before. Jari Kykkanen was released as a 20-year-old goaltender in November 2024 after the team made a move that forced a difficult decision in net.

For Banini, the challenge now is finding another team willing to give him that opportunity. For every young goaltender dreaming of playing in the WHL, it’s a reminder that stopping pucks is only part of the battle.

Sometimes, the toughest save is finding a place to play.

Hold the Phone: The Rockets had their first opportunity to challenge an offside call under a new WHL rule Saturday night against the visiting Brandon Wheat Kings. And they got it right.

Brandon scored in the third period to take a 3-2 lead. Or so it thought.

The Rockets challenged the play; the goal was overturned after a review confirmed the offside, and suddenly Kelowna had erased what could have been a costly deficit.

There is a catch. If a team challenges an offside call and gets it wrong, it is assessed a delay-of-game penalty. It’s a gamble, especially late in a close game, when one penalty can change everything.

In the NHL, teams get offside challenges right roughly 85 percent of the time. Goaltender interference reviews, which aren’t part of the WHL challenge system, are a different beast altogether. They’re far more subjective, with plenty of room for disagreement between teams, officials and fans.

Offside, on the other hand, is a little more straightforward.

The skate is either onside or it’s not.

And Saturday night, the Rockets had the right answer.

The Best of the Opposition: Over the past week, the Rockets have seen the Kamloops Blazers, Swift Current Broncos and Brandon Wheat Kings. So which opposing player left the biggest impression?

The Broncos are eliminated from consideration after a 10-2 loss to the Rockets. It’s tough to stand out when your team gives up double-digit goals.

In an overtime win over Kamloops, the Rockets dominated the shot clock with more than 40 shots on net. But you couldn’t help coming away with an appreciation for 16-year-old defenceman Mateo Ferreira.

Calm and cool with the puck, composed under pressure and capable of creating offence from the back end, he looked like a player who will become one of the Blazers’ best. That might happen later this season, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s a name we’re talking about a lot more a year from now.

The Wheat Kings, meanwhile, were by far the most impressive team we’ve seen. They look complete in so many areas, goaltending notwithstanding. It’s easy to see why they landed in the CHL’s Top 10 junior rankings this week.

Brandon won 40 games a season ago. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Wheat Kings push into the high 40s this season and take another step forward in the playoffs after first-round exits in each of the past two years.

One player I wanted to see more of was Jaxon Jacobson, the Wheat Kings’ captain. The projected first-round NHL draft pick for next summer had a relatively quiet night against the Rockets.

That’s not a criticism of a 17-year-old who has already earned the attention of NHL scouts. It’s precisely why those scouts watch players multiple times before making a decision. One quiet night in Kelowna doesn’t change what Jacobson is capable of becoming.

That’s the beauty of watching young players. You’re not judging a finished product. You’re trying to figure out what comes next.

We saw lots of scouts at Prospera Place, both Wednesday and Saturday, and the free buffet had little to do with it.

by Regan Bartel

Things that make me go hmm…

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