Update: Kelowna Rockets defeat Victoria Royals 3-2 Tuesday night in Game 3 of their playoff series.
- - -
GAME DAY, TUESDAY: Victoria at Kelowna, Game 3, 7 p.m. at Prospera Place; TV: Shaw / Radio: The Zone 91.3 FM
Close only counts in, well, fill in the blank with your favourite example.
The defending Western Hockey League champion Kelowna Rockets know that only too well after 2-1 and 3-2 losses to the Victoria Royals in the first two games of their best-of-seven Western Conference playoff semifinal series at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
With the Royals the 2015-16 regular-season champions and seemingly ascendant, the changing-of-the-guard plotline thickens as the series swings into the Okanagan for the third and fourth games tonight and Thursday.
Royals head coach Dave Lowry, however, realizes his team can鈥檛 get ahead of itself. Empires don鈥檛 collapse that easily.
鈥淭hey [Rockets] are the defending champions and lost in overtime in the Memorial Cup,鈥� said the Victoria bench boss.
鈥淲e have a tough test ahead of us. We know they are going to be hard-fought battles.鈥�
That said, the Royals were 3-1 at Prospera Place in the regular season.
鈥淲e have had success in their barn,鈥� said Royals forward Jack Walker.
鈥淭heir building is similar to our own. They get a great crowd in there. But we feed off it, too.鈥�
Kelowna will get the final line change at home.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not about us worrying about what they are doing. It鈥檚 about us keeping doing what we鈥檙e doing, and continuing to play like a team,鈥� said Walker.
鈥淲hy change something that鈥檚 worked? We use our speed and play our game.鈥�
Rookie Victoria defenceman Scott Walford, turning into an offensive factor on the power play, continues to play well beyond his years and added two assists in Saturday night鈥檚 3-2 Royals win on Blanshard. That pushed Walford鈥檚 total to two goals and six points and into a second-place tie among WHL defencemen in playoff scoring, and into second place all alone in rookie playoff scoring among forwards or defencemen.
鈥淲e have played well in Kelowna all year. But if we take our foot off the gas pedal, Kelowna will come back,鈥� Walford said.
All the Royals remain wary.
鈥淚f a couple of bounces had gone differently, we could be down two games,鈥� said Walker.
鈥淚n the playoffs, everyone raises their level of intensity.鈥�
That has been especially so of the Victoria defence, which has rallied to play solidly, in the absence of injured captain Joe Hicketts.
鈥淥ur [defencemen] have blocked shots and sacrificed their bodies,鈥� said Walford.
Victoria鈥檚 younger defencemen, particularly rookie Walford and sophomore Ralph Jarratt, have been composed and have made great strides this season.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a young group, but one of the biggest things you notice in [junior hockey], is the difference among 16-17 year olds from the beginning of the season to the end of the season,鈥� said Royals GM Cam Hope.
鈥淭hey have had a 72-game repertoire built up [from September to March/April] and they know what they are doing by the end of that.鈥�
Hicketts, who has missed the last seven of Victoria鈥檚 eight playoff games with what some are speculating is a groin injury, made the trip to Kelowna.
鈥淭hat doesn鈥檛 necessarily mean anything,鈥� said Hope, about Hicketts being on site for the two games in the Okanagan.
But Hope did allow: 鈥淛oe is being assessed daily and is getting closer.鈥�
Forward Vladimir Bobylev, who had seven assists in five playoff games before missing the last three games with a leg injury, is again not likely to play tonight.
If required, a fifth game would be played Friday night back in Victoria.
ICE CHIPS: Victoria鈥檚 winning goal Saturday, originally awarded to Walker, has officially been changed to Alex Forsberg. That post-game decision dropped Walker from the outright WHL lead in playoff goals down to a tie with Dryden Hunt of the Moose Jaw Warriors with seven each . . . Forsberg now has three goals and eight points in eight playoff games.
