Fired-up Rockets a tough test for Royals

BY CLEVE DHEENSAW, TIMESCOLONIST.COM MARCH 8, 2012 11:01 PM

The math is as brutal as it is simple for the Victoria Royals as they roll into Kelowna tonight for a Shaw-televised Western Hockey League game against the Rockets.

The Royals have five games remaining in the regular season, and while they hold down the eighth and final playoff berth in the Western Conference, they do not control their own destiny.

The ninth-place Seattle Thunderbirds are two points behind Victoria and seventh-place Everett Silvertips one point ahead of the Royals. Seattle and Everett each hold a game in hand on Victoria. If all three clubs were to win out, the Royals would be done. Everett would take seventh place by three points and Seattle and Victoria would finish tied for eighth place with Seattle winning the first and second tiebreakers over the Royals — most overall season wins and most wins in head-to-head matchups.

But it’s hard to imagine either the Thunderbirds, Royals or Silvertips winning out.

Seattle goalie and second-round Colorado Avalanche draft-pick Calvin Pickard is capable of stealing games on his own, but it is highly unlikely the Thunderbirds are otherwise competent enough to win six games in a row. The same goes for Everett.

Which should make the Royals breathe easier, not that they can breathe too easy in their situation. Victoria would lose the tiebreakers and be the odd team out in the case of a three-way tie with Seattle and Everett. The Royals simply need to get points and hope the Silvertips and Thunderbirds don’t.

“We have to find a way to get wins,” said Victoria head coach Marc Habscheid, as the team bus made its way across the border following Wednesday’s key 3-2 loss in Everett.

The Royals received a huge helping hand Wednesday from Prince George, where the Cougars beat the Thunderbirds 3-1. The 10th-place Cougars moved to within four points of Victoria but remain a lesser concern.

Kelowna, meanwhile, is 29-29-9 and assured a playoff berth but can not move up from sixth position. The Rockets don’t have as much at stake tonight and are only 14-16-2 at home. Victoria (21-40-6) matches up well and is 4-3 in the season series, including 2-1 in Kelowna. The Rockets, however, have a three-game winning streak going.

“We haven’t played them [Rockets] in quite a while and they have just swept Kamloops home-and-home and beaten the Chiefs in Spokane,” warned Habscheid.

“Everybody is getting their game together heading into the playoffs. Everybody is ramping it up.”

And any team with a player like second-round Minnesota draft-pick Brett Bulmer, who already has nine NHL games with the Wild, presents problems. The six-foot-one forward has 32 goals this season for the Rockets and is always a handful.

Just which Victoria goalie will be staring down Bulmer and his mates is not yet known. Habscheid said he won’t decide on his starting goaltender until this morning. Veteran Keith Hamilton carried the season load until rookie Jared Rathjen started the last eight games, playing well until Wednesday when he let in three goals on just 13 shots in that costly outing in Everett.