Rockets Game Notes vs. Hitmen

Tonight’s Preview: The Kelowna Rockets and Calgary Hitmen are meeting in game three of the Western Hockey League championship final. The Rockets have a 2-0 lead in the best of seven series after a 3-1 win in game one and a 5-2 victory in game two. These two teams have never met in the league final. The Rockets are appearing in the championship series for the third time in franchise history. The Rockets made an appearance in 2003 with a 6 game series win over Red Deer before earning a five game series win against Brandon in 2005. Game three and four in the series will be played Monday and Wednesday night in Kelowna. This season the Rockets and Hitmen met twice, with both games being played in Calgary. Both games were decided by a single goal.

What’s Happened So Far: The Rockets have out-scored the Hitmen 8-3 in the first two games…The Hitmen have out-shot the Rockets in both games by a margin of 58-48….The Hitmen have out-shot the Rockets in both games…Both teams have managed to open the scoring in the first two games…The Hitmen are 0 for 9 on the power play in the series while the Rockets are 2 for 5 with the man advantage…The Rockets have out-scored the Hitmen 6-2 in the third period…Only one of the eleven goals in the series have been scored in the first period. Jamie Benn’s goal in game one is the only marker scored in the opening frame….Neither team has had the lead going into the third period. In the first two contests the game has been tied at one heading into the third period…Mark Guggenberger’s goals against average in this series is 1.50, with a save percentage of .948….Martin Jones’ goals against average is 3.04 in this series with a save percentage of .870.

Game Three Success: The Rockets are 2 and 1 in game three situations in this years playoffs. The Rockets beat Kamloops 3-2 in overtime in round one, beat Tri City 7-2 in round two and suffered a 3-2 loss to Vancouver in game three of round three.

Interesting Data: Since 2000, five teams have won the Western Hockey League title with 47 wins or fewer. The last team to win the league title with the same number of wins as the Rockets had this season were the Vancouver Giants, who had 47 victories during the regular season before beating Moose Jaw in 2006. The 2005 Rockets won a WHL title with just 45 wins during the regular season. Medicine Hat had 40 wins in 2004, while Kootenay had 38 victories before capturing the title in 2002. Kootenay also had 44 wins before winning the league in 2000…The Rockets can't touch the Hitmen when it comes to points, wins and goals scored. The Hitmen had 12 more wins and 13 fewer losses than the Rockets during the regular season…The Rockets scored 63 fewer goals and allowed 19 more against than the Hitmen….The Hitmen scored 36 more power play goals than the Rockets during the regular season, and also had 21 more chances with the extra man…The Hitmen had nine players with 50 or more points while the Rockets had just five…The Rockets had five - 20 goal scorers this season. The Hitmen had 7.

I Didn’t Know That: Jamie Benn is now the Kelowna Rockets franchise leader in points in one playoff season. Benn has 31 playoff points, three more than Jesse Schultz, who put up 28 points in the 2003 post season…The Rockets are playing their 19^th playoff game tonight. That means the Rockets are playing their 91^st game of the season tonight if you include the 72 game regular season schedule…Ian Duval has 16 points in 18 playoff games this season after recording just 3 points (1+2=3) in 16 playoff games with the Calgary Hitmen last season.