Friday,October 15th, 2021 Rockets 3 Grand Forks 1
A little bit of penalty trouble in the opening period of this contest. Rockets were forced to kill off a penalty early, but fell behind 1-0 five minutes into the game as Grand Forks struck just after the club returned to full strength. Shortly after, the Rockets penalty-kill units went back into action, and again held the Bruin attack at bay very effectively.
In the second period, around the midway mark, the Rockets turned up the tempo and struck for a pair of goals in one minute to take the lead at 2-1. An unassisted marker by Jordan Lario at 10:34 tied things up, and shortly afterward Sasa Jirousek setup Henry Loewen for the go-ahead goal at 11:18.
The Rockets strong defensive play in the third period kept the Bruins off-balance and, behind the strong goaltending performance by Michael O’Sullivan, added an insurance goal off the stick of Brydon Foster with one second left, to record a 3-1 win.
Saturday, October 16th, 2021 Rockets 2 Nelson 3
Each and every Rockets contest thus far in the young season has been a close matchup, and Saturday’s encounter with the Nelson Leafs proved much of the same, directly from the opening faceoff.
Rockets found themselves down 2-1 after the opening twenty minutes. The Golden goal coming on the power play as Kade Cochlan and Nathan Kaye combined to manoeuvre the puck to Aidan Ballance, who made no mistake to get the local stars on the board.
No scoring in the middle frame, as the play evened out and travelled from end-to-end with consistency.
The Rockets caught a spark, and tied things up at 14:13 of the third period, with a Will Vernon tally, but it was the Leafs who found the winner in the last minute of the game, at 19:01 to take the win. Golden goaltender Levi Hall was selected the game’s first star. This proved to be the first loss of the season for the Rockets who, backed by the solid netminding, have displayed a healthy (and improving) balance of offensive attack and defensive discipline.
