After living to fight another day in game four, the Kelowna Rockets are looking to do the same thing tonight (April 29) in game five of their first-round series against the Seattle Thunderbirds.
The Rockets stayed in the hunt with Adam Kydd’s goal to secure a game four 3-2 overtime victory. Seattle still leads the best-of-seven series 3-1 but the Rockets are looking to do the impossible and come back from being down 3-0.
“We just gotta keep the momentum going, it’s a long series and we still got lots of hockey left,” said Kydd after Wednesday’s game. “We’re going to have to dig deep again, obviously we’re missing Liwiski here and maybe Novak. We just have to stay resilient, everyone has to play a little bit harder, the same way and we should be successful.”
For the second straight game, the Rockets will be without Mark Liwiski, who is serving the last of a two-game suspension. He received the suspension from the league after taking a checking-to-the-head penalty in game three.
They will also be without forward Pavel Novak, who missed game four. He was second on the team in scoring in the regular season with 29 goals and 43 assists ( 72 points).
“We will at least have some video to build off of, because we didn’t have much prior to tonight,” said Rockets head coach Kris Mallette. “We’ll be able to show the guys what they’ve done right, how they did it, and the success that we had doing it. We’re going to be playing desperate hockey again, but it’s far from over.”
Through four games, 17-year-old Andrew Cristall leads the team with four points in four games (all assists).
The Rockets need a win tonight to keep their season alive and force a game six back in Kelowna on Sun. May 1.
Puck drop for game five tonight is at 7:05 p.m. at accesso ShoWare Center in Kent, Washington.
READ MORE: Kelowna Rockets force game five with overtime win against Seattle
READ MORE: The Cristall brothers: Taking Kelowna hockey by storm
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jordy.cunningham@kelownacapnews.com
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