Photo credit: Steve Dunsmoor

By Regan Bartel

A good home ice beatdown

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Excuses aren’t part of the vocabulary when you hold yourself to a high standard.

Enter Andrew Cristall, a 19-year-old forward who was within an eyelash of making the opening day roster of the NHL’s Washington Capitals.

Sent back to the WHL for one more year of seasoning, the dynamic forward didn’t pout. Instead, Cristall went out and scored once and added four assists in the Kelowna Rockets 9-4 romp over the visiting Portland Winterhawks.

“Seeing AC [Andrew Cristall] come through the front door, it breeds a level of excitement in the dressing room,” Rockets assistant coach Derrick Martin told RocketFAN after Friday’s win. “He adds different facets to how we want to play the game. It was nice watching guys, wave after wave for the first 40 minutes play sound hockey.”

Cristall set the tone early, playing on a line with Max Graham and Tij Iginla. Creating energy, Iginla would score the first of three goals on the night with his second of the season less than five minutes into the opening face-off.

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“We didn’t give up much,” Martin added about holding period leads of 3-1 and 9-1. “When we did turn the puck over, it was going north quickly. We were hard to play against from a transitional standpoint, and because of that we had the puck a lot.”

For the first time this season, the Rockets were able to open the scoring, while managing to find the back of the net three times in the opening period. Prior to the outburst, they had been out-scored in the opening frame 9-0.

“Even the first shift of the game, to get some [scoring] opportunities and to push them on their heels and getting a road team to scratch their heads on the bench was nice to see,” Martin added.

While Iginla earned his third hattrick of his career, teammate Caden Price had a goal and three assists.

“I think he [Price] was putting too much pressure on himself to be the difference maker,” Martin said about the 19 year-old wanting to lead the charge when he returned from the NHL training camp of the Seattle Kraken. “We play him a lot. We rely on him for some heavy minutes against the other teams best. He played hard minutes, and while he played a lot of them they were efficient minutes. He managed the game well.

“I think the best defenseman in the world, the game changes when they are on the ice because they dictate it,” Martin continued. “I thought there were a lot of moments in tonight’s game where you could tell he [Price] was on the ice because we had the puck and we were controlling what was going on. If we didn’t, he was helping us get it back.”

Price’s four points equaled a career best one goal and three assist effort in a 5-2 home ice win against the visiting Seattle Thunderbirds last January.

“In the third period, we saw them [Winterhawks] flying three or four black jersey’s out of their zone if the off-chance they get the puck, and that is hard to defend against,” Martin said when evaluating a third period where his team surrendered three power play goals. “I thought we went away from our structure and went away from our style of play, but it wasn’t in an egregious way. Some penalties got us in trouble.”

Snapping a three game home ice losing streak to start the season with setbacks to the Winterhawks, Victoria Royals and Prince George Cougars, the team now prepares for a Monday afternoon (2:05 pm) date when the Prince Albert Raiders pay a visit.

“We believe in that dressing room that we are a very good hockey team, so it isn’t what you do on a single night that is going to dictate that, it is what you can do over and over again,” Martin suggested about a possible letdown after a blowout victory.

“It isn’t about getting full, it is about going out there and staying hungry and everyone to a man doing their job to the best of their ability.”