The Kelowna Rockets head to Kamloops tomorrow looking to keep the ball rolling on their three game winning streak when they take on a familiar foe in the Blazers.
Head Coach Jason Smith stressed his teams need to do all the little things right in order to come out with a victory tomorrow.
“They’re a team that makes you earn what you’re going to get and we have to make sure we aren’t trying to be too fancy when we get pucks to the net. Our willingness to get to the dirty areas and net front presence is really important against that team because if you don’t get to the net,” said Smith.
“They’ve got two good goalies who are really capable of stopping the puck and if they see every puck, they’re going to stop it. We have to make sure we get traffic and we’re putting pucks to the net as much as we can.”
The Rockets head into Kamloops with a record of 30-19-4-0 after taking last weekend’s back-to-back meetings with B.C. division leading Prince George Cougars. They will look to close the gap on the Blazers who currently sit five points ahead of Kelowna for second in the division with the Rockets holding one game in hand.
Kamloops has also been hot as of late, going 6-2-1-1 in their last 10 games, while pushing their record to 32-18-2-3 on the season.
This is the 9th meeting between the Rockets and Blazers, with Kamloops leading the season series 5-3. In the two most recent match ups, they were both decided by 3-2 scores with Kelowna winning 3-2 in a shootout on January 7th, while Kamloops took a 3-2 win just a few weeks later on January 27th.
Kelowna will have 19 games remaining after tomorrow night’s contest, with 10 0f those coming against divisional opponents. The Rockets will play one more game against Kamloops, four against Prince George, two more with Victoria and they have five more dates with the Vancouver Giants.
The Rockets will return to Prospera Place for a home and home with the Vancouver Giants on Friday February 10th and Saturday February 11th.
