Photo credit: Steve Dunsmoor

By Regan Bartel

Stalled at home

Hot goalie, cold start: Rockets fall 3-1 to T-Birds

Oct 11, 2025 | 10:00 AM

It was one of those nights where you could sense early that it might take something special to beat the guy in the other crease. The Kelowna Rockets fired 36 shots toward the Seattle goal on Friday night, but only one slipped through as the visiting Thunderbirds skated out of Prospera Place with a 3-1 win.

After the game, associate coach Don Hay shared his thoughts on what was, at its core, a goaltending battle that the Rockets could not quite win.

“It’s never a good sign when the opposition goalie is the first star in your building,” Hay said. “If he’s seeing those shots, he’s going to stop them. So shame on us for not getting to the net. We have to be more determined to get there.”

The Rockets’ lone goal came on a five-on-three power play, but that was it. Outside of that brief spark, Seattle’s defense and goaltending slammed the door shut.

“I thought we did go to the net, especially in the second period,” Hay said. “Not so much in the first, but in the second and third, we started going. The desperation picked up, but we’ve got to go there naturally and find pucks and rebounds and make it tough for the goalie to see the puck.”

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Seattle’s defensive game was textbook, big bodies, tight structure, and plenty of blocked shots. Hay made note of it on his sheet before the game.

“I’ve got a little note here,” he said. “Seattle blocks a lot of shots. They play a real solid stay at home defensive type of game. It’s a lot of man on man down there. They like to close you down in the corners with their big D.”

The Rockets tried to counter by working the puck up top, moving it side to side, and creating traffic, but too often the play got bottled up.

“It was important for our forwards to try to get the puck up top, low to high, side to side, and then get pucks back down to the net or the goal line so we can give our forwards an opportunity to get to the puck,” Hay explained. “Our top two offensive guys, [Mazden] Leslie and [Will] Sharpe, they’ve got to make a difference every time they’re on the ice. They’re really skilled, and we need those skilled guys to play with that sense of urgency.”

Hay pointed out that Seattle’s active sticks in the middle of the ice disrupted a lot of would be scoring plays.

“You’ve got to take what they give you,” he said. “You can’t hope the play’s going to go there. Once in a while you’ll make a home run type of toss and it’ll connect, but you need support. I didn’t like our neutral zone. There were a lot of guys by themselves against two or three Seattle players.”

That lack of puck support hurt early, especially on the penalty kill, where Seattle opened the scoring and then doubled their lead.

“I thought a key moment was to kill off that power play they had, and we didn’t,” Hay said. “They go up two nothing, now they can just sit back and defend. They’re a big solid team and they do a good job of that. They’re well coached, and that’s their identity.”

Another ongoing issue is the slow starts. The Rockets still have not scored a first period goal this season and Hay said it is something the staff is zeroing in on.

“We’re talking about that as a coaching staff,” he said. “We want to set a goal of a certain number of shots in the first period. You’d love to be up three nothing after the first, but we haven’t gotten to that point yet. Our top players have got to get to the net and make plays. You’ve got to be at the net if you want to score goals. We just have to start better. That’s the bottom line.”

The power play, despite producing the lone goal, remains a work in progress.

“I think we’re forcing things a little bit,” Hay said. “We’ve got to get it to our skilled guys to make plays. We had good opportunities Wednesday and came up empty. Tonight, I don’t know if we got a lot of good looks, and if we did, the goalie was there.”

He wants to see more grit and less hesitation with the man advantage. “If you can play a power play like a hard five on five type of situation and just get pucks to the net with lots of traffic and rebounds, try to create as much chaos as possible, you’re going to find a way to score,” he said. “We’re growing, but sometimes it’s not fast enough. We want to see improvement in our group, and we have to bounce back and have a good game tomorrow night.”

The Rockets will not have to wait long for a chance to respond. They are off to Penticton today to face the expansion Vees, a young team with momentum and confidence after three straight wins.

“They had a great weekend last weekend,” Hay said. “They scored a lot of goals and probably gained a lot of confidence. We went in there on opening night and had to play from behind, but we found a way to stay with it and score. You can’t just snap your fingers.

“You’ve got to be prepared, focused, and ready to roll. We have to bounce back and have a real good effort there to salvage the weekend.”