The Victoria Royals’ already-faint hopes of gaining home-ice advantage in the first round of the Western Hockey League playoffs grew even fainter with a 4-3 loss Tuesday night in Kelowna to the Rockets.
Victoria (37-24-5) is now eight points behind the B.C. Division second-place Rockets (41-21-5) with a game in hand but only six games remaining. Kelowna won its fifth consecutive game and is 9-1-1 in its last 11 games.
The first two placings in the B.C. Division will be guaranteed home-ice advantage in the opening round of the post-season.
Victoria starting goaltender Griffen Outhouse was chased from the net after allowing goals by Nolan Foote in the first period and Carsen Twarynski and Calvin Thurkauf in the first five minutes of the second period.
“This was not on Griff . . . I took him out because of the way we were playing [as a whole],” said Royals coach Dave Lowry.
Kelowna victimized replacement rookie Royals goaltender Dylan Myskiw with a goal by Leif Mattson in the third period to make it 4-0 before 4,507 fans at Prospera Place.
“Overall, I thought [Myskiw] did a good job and made some timely saves,” said Lowry.
Third-period Victoria goals 18 seconds apart by Jack Walker, his 29th of the season on a two-point night, and Jared Dmytriw finally got through on veteran Rockets goaltender Michael Herringer. Then Dmytriw added his second goal of the night at 18:45.
“We were on our heels, but I liked the way we battled back,” said Lowry.
Herringer, the Comox Valley product, finished with 30 saves, while Outhouse made 19 saves and Myskiw 15 to combine for 34 in the Royals crease.
The loss snapped a six-game Royals winning streak. But all those victories were against teams eliminated from the playoffs (Vancouver and Kootenay) or those on the brink of being eliminated (Spokane). Tuesday began a stint against the playoff-bound big boys.
The Royals are in Kamloops tonight and Friday to face the Blazers before returning to Kelowna on Saturday night to again play the Rockets.
“The intensity of these games will set us up for the playoffs,” said Lowry.
Kamloops has levelled off and is 5-5 in its last 10 games and has dropped its last two. The Royals have targeted division third-place Kamloops (38-23-6), who they trail by three points with one game in hand.
