Rockets Pre-Season Good but Real Test Ahead
By Warren Henderson – Kelowna Capital News
Any coaching staff would be encouraged by an unbeaten preseason.
Still, with the new Western Hockey League regular season set to begin this weekend, head man Ryan Huska isn’t reading too much into his Kelowna Rockets’ spotless 6-0 exhibition record.
“We went 5-1 in exhibition last season and we saw what happened to us after that,” said Huska, whose team started 2010-11 with 4-10 record. “You can’t take a lot of stock out of an exhibition record, a lot of teams are shorthanded with players, sometimes they play 15-year-old goalies, so you can’t always get a good gauge of where you’re at.
“We’re in a situation where we have, I think, the best goaltending in the league and we were able to play them, so that helped us.”
Even so, Huska liked a lot of what he saw from his young squad through six games of the preseason. Five wins were by a single goal, two in a shootout and one in overtime.
“For sure there were a lot of positives, we saw some of things we applied in practices being done in games, so that was good,” he said. “The guys also found a way to win the close games, so that was a positive. But there is a danger in that of thinking it’s going to be easier, but we have to steer the guys away from that.”
As Huska alluded to, goaltending should be the Rockets’ strength this season with 20-year-old Adam Brown and 18-year-old Jordon Cooke sharing the duties.
