Back to Back

r The Rockets continue their 2008-09 regular season when they kick off a home and home series against the Kamloops Blazers at the Interior Savings Centre tonight.

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r The teams will return to Kelowna for Saturday, when the Rockets will host their home opener. This two-game set is the first of six occasions during which the Rockets will play back to back against the same club over the course of the year. Two of those six times, the opponent will be Kamloops – the clubs close out the regular schedule with a back to back set in March.

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r Some major pieces of the Kelowna line-up have fallen into place since this time a week ago. On the eve of their season opening road trip to Tri-City and Portland, the Rockets were without 9 regulars who remained away while attending NHL training camps. That number is now down to 4 with Colin Long and Cody Almond having joined Lucas Bloodoff and Brandon McMillan amoung the returnees. Almond and Long will make their season debuts tonight.

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r Unfortunately, Bloodoff is now sidelined with a broken hand suffered in the Tri-City game.

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r At this point, Jamie Benn (Dallas), Luke Schenn (Toronto), Tyler Myers (Buffalo) and Tysen Dowzak (NYR) remain at camp. Furthermore, Dowzak was just assigned to the Rangers AHL affiliate, the Hartford Wolfpack for their training camp. As a 20-year-old, he’s eligible to turn pro and a strong showing at the Hartford camp could earn him a pro contract.

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r Meanwhile, much has been said of Kelowna’s acquisition of Kris Lazaruk who assumed the team’s number goaltending job in sudden fashion last Saturday. As a result, Torrie Jung has returned home to Nanaimo as he awaits a possible opening elsewhere in the CHL. So far, the Rockets have been unable to trade Jung to another WHL team. He remains on waivers and would be eligible to join an OHL or QMJHL team should he clear.

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r With the previously empty line-up slots starting to get filled, Head Coach, Ryan Huska should have an easier time getting his unit to play a sound team game. In losing both games on last weekend’s road trip, Kelowna strayed at times from it’s game plan.

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r “I thought we were very tentative in Tri-City and tried to do too much as individuals,” explained the coach. “But, on Saturday, I thought we were much better. We played within ourselves and ended up carrying the play for most of the game. Unfortunately, we just could beat their goalie (2^nd Star, Jordan White stopped 33 shots.)”

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r Huska and company will be counting on Lazaruk finding his stride this weekend. Under the direction of defensive coach, Jeff Finley and goalie coach, Kim Dillabaugh, Lazaruk spend lots of time at practice this week working with his defensemen on the all-important communication issues.

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r In addition, the team’s power play should get a boost from the returns of Long and Almond. The Rockets converted 2 of 11 chances in their first two games.

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r The Blazers are off to a 2-0-1 with all three of their games going to overtime. They’ve earned victories over Vancouver (4-3 via shootout) and Everett (4-3 in overtime) while dropping a 5-4 shootout decision to Chilliwack.

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