The Kelowna Rockets ended up with a shoot-out win over Prince George Saturday night (Jan. 14), avenging a loss to the Cougars the night previous.
Max Graham (8) put a rebound past Cougars’ goaltender Joshua Ravensbergen at 4:29 of the first period to put the Rockets up 1-0.
Later in the frame, Prince George’s Terik Parascak was awarded a penalty shot after being hauled down, however, Kelowna’s Jari Kykkanen made a blocker save to deny Parascak.
The Rockets made it 2-0 at 3:46 of the second period after Caden Price fired a shot from the top of the left face-off circle, on a pass from Gabriel Szturc, that beat Ravensbergen.
Prince George would get one back at 16:22 of the second after Ondrej Becher’s one-timer from the right faceoff circle beat Kykkanen with one second left on the power play.
Parascak evened the score 1:24 to go in the period.
The Cougars started the overtime period with 1:48 of power play time, which was successfully killed off by the Rockets, and the teams headed to the shootout after no goals were scored in the extra frame.
Szturc was the lone goal scorer for Kelowna, while Jari Kykkanen stopped three Cougar shooters.
Szturc also recorded two assists to push his career point total to 173 points, tying him with Vaclav Varada for the Tacoma/Kelowna franchise record of points by a European player.
Rockets leading scorer Andrew Cristall extended his point streak to twenty-one games after posting a pair of assists in the game.
Kykkanen made 34 saves on 36 shots to earn first-star honors and the Rockets were without forward Tij Iginla, who is out day-to-day with a lower-body injury.
Kelowna’s record is now 20-18-2-0. Their next game is Wed. (Jan. 17) when they host the Portland Winterhawks at Prospera Place at 7:05 p.m.
READ MORE: Kelowna Rockets fall in Prince George