Last weekend at the Plywood Palace, in perhaps their best 60-minute games of the season, the Golden Rockets scored a pair of victories, rolling by the visiting Castlegar Rebels 5-1 Friday, and topping it off with an exciting 4-2 win over Creston Saturday.
From the opening face-offs in each contest, Golden skated hard, combining offensive pressure with great defensive work and solid netminding.
Within five minutes after puck-drop against Castlegar, Rockets Austin Bruce and Brandon Spilchen each narrowly missed scoring chances from in front of the net.
The offensive pressure finally paid off at 6:13, when speedster Hayden Iron Shirt streamed down the left wing,
At 12:19, Brock McIlwain neatly broke up a play at centre-ice, grabbed the loose puck and moved into the Castlegar end, firing home a perfect shot under the crossbar. One minute later, Brett Krawchuk’s hard wristshot found its way through a maze of players in front of the Rebel net, to move Golden into a 3-0 lead after the opening twenty minutes.
The two clubs traded goals in the middle frame. At the 10:28 mark, Golden extended the lead to 4-0, as Jackson Roberts neatly drew the puck back from the face-off circle to Alexander Kwong. The wiry winger then made a great move to tuck the puck into the back of the net. Castlegar’s Deegan Kyle managed to get his team on the board with a late goal at 18:53.
The lone tally of the final period came at 5:57, when newly-acquired Dawson Butler (coming from the Merritt Centennials) struck for his first goal as a Rocket, connecting with Jackson Gair.
Castlegar did manage to apply some pressure in the Golden end in the latter half of the frame, but couldn’t find the range.
Final score was 5-1. Golden outshot Castlegar 35-34.
Saturday evening, the Rockets matched skills against Creston. Once again, Golden displayed a fine balance of offence and defence, coming away with a 4-2 victory.
The entire game was very close-checking at both ends of the ice. The first period went scoreless. It wasn’t until the 3:35 mark of the second period that Golden’s Jackson Roberts sniped a one-timer off a feed from Brett Krawchuk to get on the scoreboard.
Near the end of the frame, the Rockets found themselves shorthanded for no less than seven minutes, but with some solid penalty-killing got by unscathed.
In the final period, Brett Krawchuk moved the score to 2-0 when he neatly deflected a hard blueline drive from Maddox DePasquale. A minute later, Creston got on the board with a Keegan Isbister marker. However, the Rockets quickly rebounded, hitting for a pair of goals from Brock McIlwain and Hayden Iron Shirt in the space of 30 seconds.
Creston would later add a late-period goal, but it wasn’t enough, as Golden came away with a 4-2 win.
The weekend victories placed Golden in a two-way tie for second place in the tough Eddie Mountain Division, as the schedule swings into December.
