Comeback!

r The Kelowna Rockets were 2.9 seconds away from a whole new ball game.

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r But, with the clock winding down and the Kamloops Blazers set to jump back into the teams’ Western Conference Quarter-Final Series with a win in game three, fate intervened.

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r Cody Almond tapped Ian Duval’s pass into a wide open net to force overtime. Almond then ended the game at 12:21 of overtime to open a 3-0 Rockets’ series lead. Game four goes tonight (Wednesday) at the Interior Savings Center.

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r The Rockets got off to a slow start and trailed 1-0 after a shorthanded goal by Seth Compton at 9:30 of the first period. The Blazers out shot the Rockets 5-3 in the first with Kelowna squandering 4 power play opportunities.

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r The shorthanded goal was Kamloops’ second of the series against a Kelowna power play that has gone 2 for 25 in the series and hasn’t scored in its last 20 opportunities. Among those 20 chances have been 3, lengthy 5 on 3 three chances.

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r Giffen Nyren made it 2-0 for Kamloops at 11:16 of the third period and things started to look glum for the Rockets.

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r But, after out shooting the Blazers 15-3 in the second, Kelowna continued their relentless assault in the third. Jamie Benn finally got them on the board at 14:05 – a goal which only stirred the Kelowna fire all the more and set the stage for Almond’s dramatic game tying goal with Mark Guggenberger on the bench in favour of a sixth attacker.

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r The overtime session was fairly even with Kamloops edging the Rockets 7-6 on the shot clock. But, Mikael Backlund, who was making his 2009 playoff debut after missing the series’ first two games with injury, made a beautiful play on the winning goal.

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r Swooping behind the Kamloops’ goal, the smooth Swede slipped a back door pass to an uncovered Almond who banked the puck in off Justin Leclerc.

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r Kelowna ended up with a 39-18 edge on the shot clock and would have secured victory sooner if not for the great play of second star Leclerc.

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r Listen to a recap of the game with Rockets play-by-play voice Regan Bartel as he chats with Ryan Watters – http://kelownarockets.com/Story.aspx?ID=549

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r Kyle St. Denis remained on the sidelines with injury for Kelowna. Defenseman, Aaron Borejko sat out to make room for the return of Backlund.

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