Winning ugly happens. Without question it happened Tuesday night for the Kelowna Rockets in a 7-6 road win in Prince George. The Rockets are now one win away from advancing to the Western Conference semi finals against what appears to be the Portland Winterhawks. Tuesday's game was error filled and featured everything from horrendous giveaways, players tripping for no apparent reason, and to top it off, Cougars goaltender Ty Rimmer falling flat on his rear end on a Mitchell Callahan breakaway. The fans likely enjoyed it, but the coaches could only shake their heads at what they witnessed in a playoff game were scoring chances are usually fewer than an Ogopogo sighting. Not on this night.
As bad as the Rockets played the Cougars were equally as inept. Cougars starter Ty Rimmer made some good saves in the second period on low shots from Tyson Barrie and Andreas Stene but he struggled glove hand side. Colton Heffley, Cody Chikie, Brett Bulmer and even a third period goal from Shane McColgan after Rimmer bobbled the puck on a harmless shot from Gal Koren resulted in a goal. Giving up six goals by the Rockets defensive core is tough to swallow. Giving up seven in a playoff game by the Cougars is embarrassing.
I won't throw Rimmer totally under the bus. Others deserve to go with him. The Cougars turned over the puck far too many times resulting in four goals by the Rockets that all went unassisted. Cougars forward Charles Inglis went as far as to rim a puck behind his own net that it went off Rimmer's stick and then landed on the blade of Rockets forward Zach Franko. Franko promptly scored his first goal of the playoffs.
- The Rockets power play really struggled. The first three power play chances didn't even register a shot on net! Yet in saying that, the game winning goal was scored on the power play when Cody Chikie's one timer from the slot appeared to hit Mitchell Callahan in the knee in front of the net as he attempted to provide a screen and made its way past Rimmer.
- A scary situation happened in the first period when Rockets forward Jessey Astles missed a check and crashed into the side boards. The 17 year-old was helped off the ice and looked wobbly. Surprisingly, Astles reappeared in the second period and looked none worse the wear.
- Please say the ice at the CN Centre was a contributing factor in the poor play...please!!!
- The Rockets have now scored seven goals in back-to-back games.
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