The Kelowna Rockets had designs on closing out the opening round of the WHL playoffs in front of their hometown faithful.
Connor Ingram and the Kamloops Blazers had other ideas.
Ingram celebrated his 20th birthday with 32 saves to lead the Blazers to a 4-1 win Friday night at Prospera Place, staving off elimination and cutting the Rockets lead to three games to two in the battle between the B.C. Division rivals.
Game 6 goes Sunday night at the Sandman Centre in Kamloops.
After Reid Gardiner opened the scoring for the Rockets at 11:05 of the opening period, the Blazers responded with four unanswered goals while riding Ingram’s goaltending to victory.
Rockets’ head coach Jason Smith said much like the score would suggest, his team simply didn’t play well enough to wrap up the series.
“I thought the results were just what the game was,” Smith said. “We didn’t play a good enough team game and we didn’t compete in the hard areas enough.”
Gardiner and Garret Pilon traded first period goals, before Quinn Benjafield’s goal at 1:22 of the second stanza put Kamloops ahead to stay.
Rudolf Balcers and captain Collin Shirley, with a shorthanded goal at 12:22 of the third period, rounded out the scoring for Kamloops.
Disciplince was an issue for the Rockets, who took nine minor penalties in the last 13 minutes of the game.
While penalties weren’t necessarily the determining factor, Smith said they clearly didn’t help the Rockets’ cause.
“The guys came unglued a little bit and lost their composure,” Smith said. “It’s a lesson learned for sure. Not that it changed the score in any way, but it really took us away from having any chance to get back in the game.”
As for preparing for Game 6, Smith said the Rockets will wipe the slate clean and try make the most of their chance to close out the series.
“We just talked about how important it is to refocus, take the same approach we did after Game 3. It’s a fresh start the next game and you gotta win four games to win the series. We’ve got another opportunity in Game 6. We have to go out and play as a team, compete, make sure our work ethic is where it needs to be and play with passion.”
Game 7, if necessary, would be played Tuesday night at Prospera Place.