Forgetable February

Thank goodness February is the shortest month of the year.

The 28 days were painful enough as the Kelowna Rockets opened the month the exact same way they ended it - a loss to the Vancouver Giants.

That's right on February 2nd the Rockets fell 4-3 to the Giants in overtime. Last night on the last day of the month, a 3-0 shutout loss to those same Giants.

How bad was February?

How does 4 wins in 13 games make you feel?

They scored just 25 goals in those 13 games, that's 1.9 goals per game.

Painful isn't it?

The Rockets were shutout 4 times in February, twice by Vancouver and once each by Tri City and Seattle.

I wish I could have come onto this blog and said, "look at me, I was so right. I told you the Rockets would beat the Giants".

Admittedly I would have taken a tremendous amount of pleasure in that, and many would think I would have amazing Kreskin-like characteristics.

I will say that the Rockets were in a hypnotic state every time they approached the Vancouver Giants blueline last night, failing to generate few if any quality offensive chances.

Yet heading into the game and even in the early stages of the contest, I had the feeling an upset was in the works.

Rockets goaltender Torrie Jung appeared to be on his game, a key in my mind to a potential upset.
Plus the Giants were as badly beaten up as the Rockets were, with Cody Franson and Michal Repik out because of head injuries.
But let's be honest, the Giants have depth up the wazoo, so even with those 'studs' out of the lineup, this team that Don Hay has assembled is just that good.

The Rockets were again without captain Chris Ray, plus Brandon McMillan, Evan Bloodoff, Tyler Myers and Riley McIntosh were at the Winter Games.

Oh sure the Rockets were short staffed again, but bad teams make excuses while good teams ignore them.
I am not sure about the Rockets last night, but the Giants were not about to make any excuses by playing as hard as they needed too, yet putting in what I would call a 'hum-drum' type of effort in their 39th win of the season.

The Rockets were nothing short of dismal offensively.

A season low 10 shots on goal was embarrassing to say the least, as Giants goaltender Blaine Neufeld's greatest challenge wasn't keeping the Rockets off the scoreboard, but it was trying to stay awake.

Oh sure the Giants were solid defensively, eliminating any real tight offensive chances, but the Rockets had only one good opportunity from what the coaches call the 'red zone' - a in-tight chance by Justin Bernhardt who seemed to run out of real estate after making a nice move around a Giants defenseman.

Who was the best Rocket in the teams 4th straight loss?

Clayton Barthel was the only one wanting to initiate body contact consistently last night, and seemed to play with a bur under his saddle through the game.
Sure Barthel was burned for the Giants 3rd goal, but by then the game was out of reach.

Torrie Jung also played a solid game, giving his team every chance to provide the upset. He too gave up a shaky goal to J.D Watt to open the scoring, but Jung could have made a thousand saves, but if the team in front of him can't provide any offense does it really matter?

The Rockets have now been shutout 12 times this season, and have not scored a goal in back-to-back games.
If you want to get technical, which I like to do, the Rockets haven't scored a goal since David Schulz scored with exactly 2 minutes left in the third period of a 7-1 loss to Chilliwack Saturday night.

That's 122 minutes without a goal.

Lets forget about what happened in February and quickly move into the month of March, hoping that unlike what U.S college basketball calls 'March Madness', it in no way pertains to the Kelowna Rockets hockey club.