Courier: Game report
r By Doyle Potenteau – Kelowna Daily Courier
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r Pretty, it wasn‘t. Except for Tyson Barrie‘s game-winning goal, that is.
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r Barrie was the only player to score in the shootout, going five-hole after a series of dekes, as the Kelowna Rockets beat the Prince George Cougars 5-4 in WHL action on Wednesday night. That goal was pretty much the only memorable item in what was a forgettable night for Kelowna.
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r The Rockets jumped out to a quick start, scoring twice in the first eight minutes, then eased off the gas and allowed Prince George back in the game.
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r “I kinda have a few moves I work on in practice, and that one (move) usually seems to work pretty well,” Barrie said of his game-winning goal. “I was trying to open (Prince George‘s goalie up) and I got pretty lucky tonight.”
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r It can be argued the Rockets were lucky as a whole, as the Cougars were the more aggressive team down the stretch. And had it not been for a great diving save by Rockets netminder Adam Brown late in overtime, denying a goal by Cougars forward James Dobrowolski of Vernon, Prince George, not Kelowna, would have walked away with two points.
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r Mind you, the Rockets also hit two posts in that quick start, and maybe had one gone in, the contest could have been a landslide win instead of being a tight victory.
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r “(The game) was weird because our problem lately has been our starts,” said Barrie. “But I thought we had a good start . . . I don‘t know, I guess we were content with that and the wheels fell off the bus. But we greased one out tonight.”
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r Mitchell Callahan, Brandon McMillan, Kyle St. Denis and Spencer Main scored for Kelowna (9-7-1-0), which led 2-0 after eight minutes but trailed 3-2 halfway through the second period. The game was the second meeting of the season between the Rockets and Cougars, with Kelowna winning the opener, 7-1 on Oct. 10.
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r Dobrowolski, with two goals, Nick Buonassisi, with a goal and an assist, and Robbie Ciolfi, with his third goal of the season, replied for Prince George (3-12-0-1). The Cougars, who played better as Wednesday‘s affair went along, entered the contest on a two-game losing streak and having lost 10 of their last 11 games.
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r Alex Wright made 30 saves for the Cougars, who now embark on a six-game road trip through the Prairies that starts Friday in Swift Current. Brown turned aside 27 shots for the Rockets, who host Chilliwack (7-8-1-3) on Friday night.
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r Rockets head coach Ryan Huska said his team “quit skating after the first eight minutes of the first period. I thought we had a good start, which is something we‘ve talked about the last few days, but we quit moving our feet after we scored that second goal. And it ended up being a very close game because of that.
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r “Prince George has a team that‘s working now and is competing and has some healthy bodies back. The two posts that we hit, if those go in, it might have been a different story, but we quit skating, and that‘s the biggest thing. If we don‘t all skate and all work the same way, we‘ll have tough times winning games.”
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r Dobrowolski almost made Prince George the winner with a shot from the bottom of the right faceoff circle that looked to be an overtime winner. Instead, Brown dove across and made the stop.
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r “I thought I had that one,” said Dobrowolski, whose team had a kicked-in goal waived off and another cross the goal-line one second after the second-period buzzer expired. “(Kurt) Torbohm made a great play over to me and I just fired it quickly. If I had taken a second look, I think I could have had it.”
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r “He had the chance to get his third goal there, and he was also in the shootout,” Cougars head coach Dean Clark said of Dobrowolski. “He had a hell of a game. James is a 19-year-old, which we don‘t have a lot of, and we need our 19-year-olds to be our better players, and I thought James is starting to show what he needs to be: A big, strong guy. He can win battles, he‘s great in the faceoff circle and he can chip in offensively. We need that from him all trip.”
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r ICE CHIPS: Kelowna‘s scratches were G Mark Guggenberger (hernia, 4 weeks), LW Evan Bloodoff (knee, 5 months), RW Codey Ito (ribs, day to day), C Max Adolph (ankle, 1 week) and D Kyle Verdino (ankle, knee, 1-2 weeks). Prince George‘s scratches were LW Brett Connolly (hip, 1-2 weeks), LW Kyzen Loo, D Garrett Thiessen (shoulder, 1 week) and D Dallas Jackson (1-game suspension).
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