Carsen Twarynski couldn’t have felt too happy about the proceedings after 20 minutes of play at Prospera Place, with his Kelowna Rockets down 2-1 at the intermission.
The 20-year-old forward who has been on a tear of late, found himself in the penalty box twice late in the frame. On both occasions, the pesky, upstart Vancouver Giants scored with the man advantage.
“Any time you’re getting contributions from anywhere in the lineup, if you’re getting good games, it’s not necessarily about getting on the score sheet,” Rockets head coach Jason Smith said. “It’s about doing things the right way and being an accountable player and a factor that’s positive for your team.”
Twarynski would later atone for his miscues, but not before the 5,037 faithful at Prospera Place were treated to perhaps the most entertaining contest played in Kelowna this season.
Gordie Ballhorn opened the scoring, blasting a shot from the blueline through traffic at the 13:53. Vancouver responded at 16:46 when Ty Ronning beat James Porter after some nifty Giants puck movement. Then at 19:07 on another Power play, Tyler Benson one-timed a pass from Alex Kannock-Leipert to give the Giants a 2-1 edge heading into the break.
Trailing 2-1, Porter held the Giants at bay during the second period until Leif Mattson scored at 17:35, from veterans Dillon Dube and Cal Foote. Mattson’s sixth goal in nine games marks an important run of depth scoring for the Rockets young forward.
Vancouver regained the lead at 4:45 of the third period when 20-year-old Brad Morrison batted a puck out of the air past Porter. Morrison, a 20-year-old from West Kelowna who came over to the Giants during the off-season from the Prince George Cougars, was the best player on the ice for Vancouver. In fact, the forward unit of Morrison, Ronning and import Milos Roman gave the Rockets fits from start to finish.
At 7:29, Kole Lind drew the Rockets even with an electrifying individual effort. The Vancouver Canucks 2017 second rounder picked up the puck in the neutral zone and drove to the Giants net. He pushed the puck toward the crease then watched as Alex Kannonk-Leipert and James Malm collided with goaltender Todd Scott. The pile up forced the puck across the goal line and Lind was credited with his 10th goal of the season.
Then at 11:46 on the power play, Connor Bruggen-Cate’s harmless looking shot from a sharp angle eluded Scott to put the Rockets ahead 4-3.
At 16:36 on yet another power play, Benson moved around Lind at the top of the faceoff circle and found enough space to get off a shot that beat Porter to tie the affair at 4-4.
In overtime, Twarynski attoned for his first period infractions. The Philadelphia Flyer’s 2016 draft pick won a puck battle with Benson inside the Rockets blueline, chipped it ahead to Cal Foote then jumped into the rush two-on-one. When the pair gained the Giants blueline, Foote slid the puck over to Twarynski who one-time a shot past Scott at 2:07 of overtime to send the Rockets fans into a frenzy.
“In the room after the game, we talked about trying to play complete games and playing with structure and playing a team game that’s good for our group,” said Smith. “We weren’t very good with that, but we won the game and we’ll be better tomorrow.
“There were lots of scoring chances at both ends. We gave up too many grade ‘A’ opportunities and forced our goalie to make too many saves.
“But we created chances offensively. It would be nice to capitalize a bit more, but that’s a credit to their goaltending (tonight). We need to be sharper on the finishing.”
The teams scored five power play goals and also once shorthanded. The Rockets were handed six of 11 minor penalties.
The last time Vancouver won in Kelowna was March 19, 2011 – a run of 25 games. Kelowna has gone 12-0 over the past five seasons at home against the Giants while Vancouver has mustered an 0-11-2 record since it last victory at Prospera Place.
Post Game Interview: Carsen Twarynski (click here)
Post Game Interview: Jason Smith (click here)
Ice Chips…Kelowna outshot Vancouver, 35-28…Three stars were Morrison, Mattson, Twarynski…Kelvin Hair, Kaeden Korczak, Erik Gardiner, Colum MacGauley, Brodan Salmond did not play for the Rockets…Of note, highly touted 16-year-old rookie defenceman Bowen Byram did not play for the Giants. Both Korczak and Byram are away at the 2017 World U-17 Championship in northern B.C….Ethan Hunt of the Kelowna Chiefs (KIJHL) dressed as the Rockets backup goalie…The Rockets are 4-3-1-1 at home.
(DUBNetwork thanks Kevin Bain and the Kelowna Rockets for its game day video production.)
