Monday, January 21, 2013

Rockets set record while rolling on home ice

  • It was reason to celebrate Saturday night at Prospera Place as the Kelowna Rockets broke a team record with their 19th consecutive win on home ice. That eclipses the old mark of 18 straight wins on home ice in 2002-2003. Now this years team can attempt to smash the franchise record of 24 consecutive wins on home ice set by the Tacoma Rockets in 1992-93. 
  • If the Rockets hope to reach the franchise mark they are going to have to do it by going though the Portland Winterhawks. The 24th straight win would have to come against the visiting Winterhawks on February 8th. The record breaker would also have to happen against the Winterhawks one night later. Between then and now the Rockets have home games against Seattle, Prince Albert, Victoria and Vancouver.    
  • During the 19 game winning streak the Rockets have allowed 1.8 goals against per game. 
  • Don't look now, but defensive d-man MacKenzie Johnston has the second most points on the team in the month of January. Johnston has 10 points (3+7=10), one more than leading scorer Myles Bell. Zach Franko leads the way with 11 points.
  • With five games left in the month, Ryan Olsen has a chance to equal are exceed the 8 goals he scored in November. Olsen has five goals in January.
  • 25 games left in the regular season. The Rockets play 14 of those 25 on home ice. 
  • The Rockets have 71 points this season. All of last season the team collected 72 points.
  • With 200 goals scored, the Rockets are just 17 shy of the 217 goals they scored all of last season.  
  • Amazingly, the Rockets still have six more meetings against the Kamloops Blazers.
  • An interesting comment from coach Huska the other night when we were discussing Tyrell Goulbourne's play on the penalty kill. Huska suggested Goulbourne could be the fastest skater on the team. You don't notice it when he is carrying the puck, but watch him in a race for it and see who gets there first.
  • The WHL doesn't keep such a record, but Jordon Cooke's 18 straight wins has to be a new bench mark for goalies. Kenric Exner of the Kamloops Blazers (1998-99) went 24 games without a loss but that included a couple of ties.
  • If everything goes according to plan, the Rockets roster could be entirely healthy when they face the Seattle Thundebirds Thursday night. J.T Barnett and Henrik Nyberg would have to return for that to become a reality. The question now is who do you scratch? Nice problem to have. 
  • The Rockets enter a tough stretch of the schedule. The team will play seven games in the next ten days starting Thursday against the T-Birds. It includes back-to-back three games in three night stretches.

3 comments:

bigkev said...

well regan, johnston still a liability on defence look at the spokane game. a toddler could beat johnston 1 on 1

jaz301 said...

19 straight wins at home is an amazing feat. This rockets team is a serious contender and cant wait till playoffs. First though we have to get through the rest of the season. Rockets are only 5 points behind Portland now. Would be nice if they could pass them and take 1st place in WHL. Go Rockets Go!.

Gord McGarva said...

Brenden Kitchton was a -3 that night. MacKenzie Johnston was even in the plus / minus statistic.

http://www.whl.ca/schedule/show/gam
e/62282

Johnston has one more point in 27 games this year than the past 182 games during the previous three seasons.

Johnston is usually on the ice against the top lines of the other teams and has almost been a (+1) per game in 2012-2013 (+22) in 27 games played, which includes returning from an injury.

These are all facts not opinions.

http://www.whl.ca/roster/show/id/849

19 straight wins at home surely we can all find something positive.