Kelowna at Victoria 6/7 Jan 12
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k2...wnaRockets.gif at http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k2...oriaRoyals.gif
As the Royals continue to flounder having lost 7 in a row and losing Defenceman Jesse Pauls to retirement :rolleyes:
Maybe our new screen is allowing the coach to come down a bit harder on the players as they can now see the whole picture from the tapes.
And maybe there is an ending as to when the slump will finish. Victoria and Kelowna have played 5 games with the Royals winning 4. :clap:
Kelowna has had their own problems with winning 3 of their past 10
Kelowna Rockets 39 15 19 2 3 = 35 PTS 1-0-0-0 STK 3-5-0-2 P10 686 PIM
Victoria Royals 40 13 23 2 2 = 30 PTS 0-5-1-1 STK 1-7-1-1 P10 717 PIM
Weekend set could be key for Royals
Weekend set could be key for Royals
BY CLEVE DHEENSAW, TIMES COLONIST JANUARY 5, 2012 9:07 PM
January is the time in hockey when you begin looking at the standings with a degree of seriousness.
The Western Hockey League tables aren’t exactly imbued with a rosy glow for the Victoria Royals, not that they don’t look at them.
“We post the standings in the dressing room,” said GM and head coach Marc Habscheid, whose Royals host the Kelowna Rockets tonight and Saturday at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre in what has turned into a key series.
“The standings are a reality. But it’s important that we play the game.”
In other words, look at the standings but don’t dwell on them to the point of paralysis.
Victoria (13-23-4) holds down the eighth and final playoff position in the 10-team Western Conference, but the Prince George Cougars are only two points behind with two games in hand.
Sixth-place Kelowna (15-19-5) is five points ahead of the Royals with a game in hand while the seventh-place Seattle Thunderbirds are three points up on Victoria with four games in hand.
“Kelowna is among those teams close to us, so this sets up an important weekend,” said Habscheid.
Streaks in junior hockey can just as easily start going the other way, Habscheid noted.
“Fans saw in the world tournament just how unpredictable junior hockey is. These are young guys and they make mistakes. It makes junior hockey variable.”
The Royals blueline remains an area of focus. Jesse Pauls retirement earlier this week will be offset by the return this weekend of Keegan Kanzig from the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge.
With Tyler Stahl still out with concussion and his return date uncertain, the Royals have six regular defenceman.
The team made no official comment on the reason for Pauls’ retirement. Pauls declined comment.
“Jesse is a good kid and a skill guy.
“This gives some of our younger defencemen a chance [for more ice time],” said Habscheid.
The Royals blueline currently consists of regulars Kanzig, Hayden Rintoul, Zach Habscheid, Jesse Zgraggen, Kade Pilton and Brett Cote with Turner Popoff available when needed.
“It will be a little tougher now because Jesse [Pauls] was a key part of our defensive corps,” said Zgraggen.
As for those standings, Zgraggen said it’s hard not to glance at them in the dressing room.
“I see them every day in the room and see that we’re not climbing the ladder like we want to be,” he said.
“But we’re confident we can climb up.”
The Royals offence has had no trouble scoring goals. But the 203 goals against — the next closest team Lethbridge is at 175 and has played two more games — remains a glaring statistic.
“We take pride in shutting teams down, but we’ve not been getting that done much lately,” said the amiable Zgraggen.
“We try not to look at those stats too much.”
This weekend’s Kelowna set represents the last home stand before the Royals embark on the longest road trip of the season — a 12-day, six-game asphalt-grinder beginning next Friday through the Eastern Conference.
Rockets blast Royals in the 3rd
The impressive new video screens in Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre experienced some technical glitches in the third period of Friday night’s Western Hockey League game.
But it was nothing compared to the third-period outage suffered by the Victoria Royals as the visiting Kelowna Rockets scored three unanswered goals in the final frame to steal a 5-2 victory before 6,141 fans.
It was the eighth consecutive loss for Victoria, although two of those games went beyond regulation time as the Royals have two of a possible 16 points in that stretch.
“It’s tough when you’re in a slump like this,” said Victoria leading scorer and Buffalo Sabres-signed Kevin Sundher, who assisted on both Royals goals.
“We’re disappointed. We played better, but that doesn’t make it any sweeter. It’s bitter every single game you lose. You’re at a loss for words every time saying what happened. It’s frustrating.”
It took Kelowna forward and New York Rangers fifth-round draft pick Shane McColgan just 30 seconds to open scoring, drawing even more focus to Victoria’s dubious status as the most scored upon team in the league by a Central Saanich mile.
After killing off a lengthy two-man Kelowna advantage, the Royals struck on a power play of their own to tie it 1-1 on a shot from the point by defenceman Hayden Rintoul for this 10th goal of the season at 6:09 of the second period. But Kelowna answered less than a minute later with Myles Bell’s power-play point shot to regain the lead.
Victoria tied it again at 17:59 through Jamie Crooks’ 21st goal set up by an assist from behind the net by Logan Nelson, the Minnesotan who leads the WHL in rookie points with 40.
Rearguard Bell, in what became a refrain for him, pulled the Rockets ahead 3-2 at 1:02 of the third period. The Royals pressed in response but Kelowna goaltender Adam Brown, who was in training camp with the Edmonton Oilers, proved up to the task as Victoria held a 16-6 shots advantage in the third period and 38-28 on the game.
Rockets centre Cody Chikie’s against-the-grain goal at 12:04 pretty much rung the death knell for Victoria. Carter Rigby added an exclamation mark on the power play at 16:09.
“We played well the first two periods,” said Royals captain Rintoul.
“In the third period, a couple of mistakes cost us the game. We need to clean up some of the gray areas we had. The mood in the room is that everyone is angry because we’ve not been doing as well lately. But in practice we create good habits and work hard. It’s a matter of time until we put together some wins.”
Victoria (13-24-4) is in the eighth and final playoff position in the 10-team Western Conference but that hold is tenuous. The Royals, however, received some help Friday as the ninth-place Prince George Cougars were blanked 2-0 in Kamloops to remain two points behind Victoria with two games in hand. Another assist came from Tri-City, which defeated seventh-place Seattle 7-3 to keep the Thunderbirds three points ahead of Victoria, albeit with Seattle holding five games in hand. Sixth-place Kelowna (16-19-5) moved seven points ahead of the Royals with a game in hand.
Victoria and Kelowna meet again tonight at 7.
Read more: http://www.timescolonist.com/Rockets...#ixzz1ikjvRJPm